War
by White-Knight-1988
Summary: In the present day, a new evil has arrived, threatening to destroy the very fabric of humanity. The present-day Rangers are ill-equipped to deal with the threat alone, though, forcing a team of future Rangers to travel back through time to save the world.
1. Get in Gear

_**Title: War**_

_**Chapter One — Get in Gear**_

_**Original Posting Date: May 21, 2010**_

_**A/N: This will be a very short story, no more than five or six chapters, that takes place six years after Dino Thunder; or three years after RPM, depending on how you look at it.**_

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_The distant future…_

The cool night air swept in through the open window, causing the curtains to billow as the breeze swept across the face of the young man seated on the windowsill in the dark. He was no more than twenty-five, his long and wavy brown hair covering his forehead while his deep brown eyes remained trained on the nearby bed and the lump beneath the covers slowly moving up and down. Without warning, a smile crossed his lips as another gust of wind brushed against his skin.

He was wearing only a black tank top and matching boxer-briefs, but the coolness of the air did not even register the smallest of shivers. Only the most bitter-cold and scorching-hot of days could make his body feel differently. Such was the way things were for the man who was not technically a man at all.

Though the sentient computer virus that had once inhabited his body was long gone, it did not change the fact that his body was part machine. For the man known only as Dillon, he had been this way — a _hybrid — _almost as long as he could remember. It had been several years since the Venjix computer virus had been unleashed, eventually destroying nearly the entire world in the process. Dillon knew nothing of the world before Venjix, however, or the ensuing war that had lasted for nearly three years after Venjix's arrival.

Dillon's earliest memories were of a factory, one of many established by Venjix once he had eventually taken control. Captured by Venjix's robotic foot soldiers called Grinders, it was to this factory where he and his younger sister, Tenaya, had been taken, along with hundreds upon hundreds of other human prisoners.

There they underwent a number of physical experiments performed by this machine army, until one day Dillon had been able to escape. His sister, however, had not been so lucky. She did not have Dillon's fighting experience, and on top of that, she was blind, making it so that he, Dillon, had to do nearly all of the work in getting them out.

Unfortunately, they were ambushed by a group of Grinders and his sister was re-captured. To this day, Dillon still didn't know how he managed to escape, nor did he know why he had chosen to go on without her. Why had he left his sister behind to continue being experimented on? It just didn't seem like the type of thing that he would do.

Alas, he had long since given up trying to understand his past. None of it made much sense, and thinking about it almost always left him wishing that he hadn't, since the answers he desired never came.

All he knew was that he had somehow made it out. His first firm memories were behind the wheel of an old black Chevrolet muscle car, driving through the deserted — and often toxic — wastelands en route to Corinth, a domed city that also happened to be the last remaining stronghold on Earth following Venjix's takeover. He didn't know how he had gotten the car, just that he had it.

He couldn't even remember a single one of the many experiments that had been performed on him, yet the results of them were evident even to this day. While the fear of being controlled by Venjix was gone, the pieces of metal, wire, and circuitry that ran throughout his entire body were not, nor would they ever be.

Still, he mused as he watched the lump beneath the covers roll over, being a hybrid had some advantages. He rarely needed to sleep, he was immune to most human diseases, and when he ate or drank something, it was because he wanted to, not because he needed it to survive. He also had certain physical advantages that normal humans didn't have; his strength, speed, reflexes, and stamina were all augmented beyond any human capabilities. With a smile, Dillon reminded himself just how fond the lump beneath the covers was of that last one.

That was another advantage to being a hybrid. If not for Venjix experimenting on him, he might never have met _her_.

"Her," in this case, was Summer Landsdown, former Ranger Operator Series Yellow and the woman whom he loved more than anything. She had fought for him, with him, and by his side more times than he could ever count, always there to remind him just what it was that they were fighting for.

"I don't care where you came from. I want to know where you're going."

She had said those words to him in their first real conversation, and he had been infatuated with her ever since. It was the thought of being able to be around her more that had convinced him to join the Power Rangers as Ranger Operator Series Black and defend Earth's last remaining city against Venjix.

In the end, the Rangers had been able to defeat Venjix and save Dillon's sister in the process, the latter of which was something Dillon knew he would not have been able to do without the help of the Rangers. Unable to remember anyone other than his sister, the Rangers had truly become his family, though no one more so than Summer.

Well, there was also Ziggy…

Just thinking about his old friend made Dillon grin wildly. To this day, he could still remember their first encounter. Dillon was driving to Corinth City and had stopped to get a bottle of water from the trunk of his car. Ziggy, who had been in the wastelands for reasons unbeknownst to Dillon, had decided to hijack Dillon's car by taking off the muffler and pressing it against Dillon's back while trying to convince Dillon it was a blaster.

To say they became fast friends would be patently false. In fact, for awhile, Dillon regarded Ziggy as nothing more than an annoyance and a source for occasional amusement. Ziggy, however, had been the friend that Dillon so desperately needed, and in time, Dillon had come to regard Ziggy more as a brother than just a friend.

Between Summer, Ziggy, and his sister — who was now living with her boyfriend in Omega City — Dillon felt like he had all the people in his life that he needed to be happy. That he could count the other four Rangers and their mentor as friends as well was just icing on the cake as far as he was concerned.

While he continued to watch Summer's sleeping form rise and fall, Dillon could not help but think about the other Rangers, including Ziggy. Following the defeat of Venjix, they had stayed behind in Corinth City while Dillon, Summer, and Tenaya had left with plans to help rebuild the world outside the city's dome.

Though they all communicated fairly regularly, the newly built Millennium City was far from Corinth, and Dillon had not seen any of them since leaving. Deep down, he missed them more than he would ever be willing to admit.

Summer was great, but she couldn't argue with him like Scott, or make shadow puppets like Ziggy. She didn't spout Flynn's random, often hilarious, and always Scottish-influenced expressions like, "For the love of Odin's beard!" She didn't run around finishing sentences and wanting to blow stuff up all the time like Gem and Gemma, although that last one was probably a good thing.

Hell, Dillon even missed Dr. K, the now twenty-one year-old woman who had driven the Rangers crazy with her blunt, sarcastic, and condescending remarks, as well as her early refusal to call any of them by anything except their official Ranger titles.

Being a Ranger had given his life purpose at a time when he had felt that he had none, and while life with Summer in this thriving new metropolis was better than he ever could have hoped for, part of him still longed to be able to strap on his Rev Morpher and shout the words "RPM, get in gear!" just one more time.

"You're staring," Summer suddenly announced, snapping Dillon away from his thoughts temporarily.

Wondering how in the world she could have known this with her face in her pillow, Dillon quietly replied, "So what if I am?"

Slowly, the lump beneath the covers began to unfold itself, Dillon watching even more intently now as Summer climbed out of bed, checking the digital alarm clock on the nightstand to see that it was three in the morning before starting towards him. She was wearing no more than one of Dillon's black t-shirts, which hung well past her knees, her long blonde hair was an utter mess, and she had on no makeup at all, yet to Dillon, she looked even more beautiful now than she did dressed up.

That was saying something, too, since Summer certainly knew how to get dressed up with the best of them.

As Summer grew closer, Dillon stood up to greet her, enveloping her in his well-muscled arms as she laid her head against his chest. "Why aren't you sleeping?" she asked in a tired murmur, stifling a yawn.

"I slept three days ago," Dillon answered with a smile. "Besides, there are a lot more important things to do than sleep."

"What, like watch me do it?" questioned Summer teasingly.

Dillon gave a brief chuckle. "What can I say? You're a hard person to look away from."

Summer's cheeks flushed slightly at that. Not really knowing what to say, she did the only thing that felt natural, an incredible sense of warmth rushing throughout her body the moment her lips met Dillon's. The kiss, however, was interrupted before it had a chance to really get started.

Dillon had only just begun to return it when the telephone on his nightstand suddenly began to ring, causing him to pull back as he looked towards the phone and said, "What the —?"

"Who in the world would be calling at this hour?" Summer wondered aloud.

Dillon shook his head. "No idea," he replied, releasing his hold on Summer before heading for the telephone. As he picked up the phone and brought it to his ear, he smiled brightly at Summer and pressed the Talk-button. "Hello?" he said with a hint of hesitation.

From across the room, Summer watched Dillon for a few moments as he silently listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, smiling back at her the whole time. Then, suddenly, his smile was gone, replaced by a mouth that had fallen open in shock and eyes that were as wide as tea saucers.

* * *

Several thousand miles away, three stealth aircrafts were currently in flight over what had once been the nation of Kenya. In the center craft was a young black man in his early-twenties, almost his entire head and face covered by his helmet, visor, and oxygen mask. His name was Scott Truman, former Ranger Operator Series Red and current captain of the Eagle Squadron, the most prestigious team in New America's Air Force.

Though he had been given the position of captain following Venjix's defeat, Scott would have never imagined that a day like today might actually come. He had been so certain that the world, which had been so close to being totally obliterated, would be more united than ever; peaceful, at long last. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case.

The moment Venjix had begun to show his true strength, the intergalactic police force, Space Patrol Delta, shut down their operations on Earth and quickly evacuated the planet. Earth's SPD Rangers had tried to stay behind and defend the planet, but the bureaucracy of SPD had made it impossible to do so. With no SPD to keep them safe, the aliens that had once co-existed with humans were gone just as quickly as the law enforcement agency.

Now that Venjix was gone, however, the aliens had returned in full force. These were not the aliens that Scott had once lived peacefully with, though. These were aliens who saw Earth as a weakened and defenseless planet due to Venjix's destruction, aliens who severely outnumbered humans and thought that they should be able to rule accordingly.

Tonight's mission had everything to do with delivering a message on behalf of human kind, the same kind of message Scott had once thought would never need to be delivered again. In the plains of former Kenya was a large military-type complex established by the Zanarian Rebel Faction, one of the most powerful and well-numbered of Earth's current and many enemies. In five minute's time, no one who came across that area in the future would know the village had ever existed.

There would be some innocents who lost their lives tonight, or at least innocent as far as Zanarians went. They were a race of warriors, both male and female alike; and their young were raised accordingly, raised to hate their enemy blindly regardless of what was at stake.

Scott didn't necessarily like the idea of killing baby Zanarians who hadn't even learned to walk or talk yet, but he also understood what was at stake by allowing the Zanarians to continue repopulating. Zanarians developed into full adults after just five years; at that rate, it would only be two more years before the human race lost any chance at continuing survival.

Destroying their largest complex before that could happen was the only possible choice.

"Eagle-2, Eagle-3," Scott said over the aircraft's communication system, "Check weapons and prepare for deployment."

"Copy that, Eagle-1," two voices replied in tandem.

"Checking weapons," said the first, a female.

"And preparing for boom ti— I mean, _deployment,_" added the second, a male.

Scott grinned broadly beneath his mask. Eagle-2 and Eagle-3, otherwise known as Gem and Gemma, had been Ranger Operator Series Gold and Silver respectively. They were also the most…_eccentric _of his former teammates. Gem and Gemma had an affinity for completing each other's sentences and they were also particularly fond of explosions; the larger, the better, in their eyes. However, they were also both incredibly intelligent, having helped Dr. K build various weapons and pieces of Ranger technology, and they had both piloted aerial Zords as well, so their flight experience was superb.

At the time, Scott hadn't been sure if bringing them on as Eagle Squadron's newest recruits would be his best decision or his worst. Now, though, he didn't know why he had ever doubted them in the first place. Out of Eagle Squadron's dozen members, Gem and Gemma were the only two that he could trust with a mission of this magnitude.

Within moments, the target was in sight. The second he set his sights on the complex, Scott allowed his mind and body to slip into auto-pilot mode. It wasn't until they were flying away from the complex a short while later that his sense of consciousness returned. He knew that he had given the order to drop the bombs, knew from the cloud of thick black smoke behind him that the explosives had done their job, but he could not remember actually _doing_ any of it.

Truthfully, though, he didn't want to. Even though these Zanarians were a threat to humanity, they were also living, breathing beings. Destroying Venjix's machines had not been difficult from a morality standpoint, but killing living creatures was something else entirely.

Scott was a leader at heart, though, and sometimes leaders had to make tough decisions, even when they didn't necessarily agree with those decisions themselves. It was either the Zanarians or humanity, and for Scott, he had fought far too hard against Venjix to sit back and watch the human race be destroyed completely.

Fortunately, he wasn't given much time to think about it. Just a few miles outside of the former Kenya, a new voice was filling Scott's ears, that of his father, Colonel Mason Truman.

"Eagle-1, do you copy?"

"Eagle-1 here, sir," Scott replied.

"That was good work back there, son," said Colonel Truman. "We saw it all back at base on your wing camera."

"Thank you, sir," said Scott, trying to sound as appreciative as possible.

"No, son, thank you," said Colonel Truman. After a brief pause, he went on, "We have an incoming transmission for you. Are you prepared to receive?"

"An incoming transmission?" asked Scott, "Who's it from?"

When Colonel Truman answered, Scott's plane veered wildly.

* * *

In the heart of downtown Corinth City was a large auto repair shop called _McAllistair's_. At five o'clock in the morning, the place was dark and seemingly unoccupied. Above the shop, however, was a small apartment, the bedroom of which was currently being used by a sleeping young man in his twenties with closely shaved brown hair.

This was Flynn McAllistair, former Ranger Operator Series Blue and current namesake of the repair shop below. Sleeping on his back, Flynn suddenly gave a loud snort, flipped over onto his stomach, and muttered, "Get in gear" into his pillow.

His current dream was the only one he seemed to have these days. Flynn didn't mind though, since it was only there, in his dreams, where he could safely tell Gemma how he felt about her; and when he did, it was the most wonderful thing imaginable.

If only life in the real world could be so easy…

Unfortunately, Gemma's relationship with her brother was _different,_ to say the least. The only life they had ever known prior to joining the Ranger team was in a government think-tank where they had been abused, both mentally and emotionally; as such, they were dependent on each other in ways that the average siblings would never want to even think about.

With all of them living in the same city, Flynn still saw quite a bit of Dr. K, Ziggy, Scott, Gem, and Gemma; and in rare moments where he and Gemma were alone, he was certain that he was not alone in his feelings. They never acted on them, though; or, rather, Gem usually interrupted them before either of them could do anything.

More than once, Flynn had had to stop himself from ripping Gem's head off with a silent reminder that Gem was not your average person. Some situations required that he and his sister be treated with kid gloves, and this was certainly one of them.

In his dreams, he and Gemma were building some new invention together like they had often done in their Ranger days. They were laughing and joking and, most importantly, free from Gem.

Then the telephone next to his bed started ringing and Flynn was awakened to the realization that Gemma was not with him, and would probably never be with him. Groaning as he blinked himself back into consciousness, Flynn reached out wildly and started slapping around his nightstand until he found his phone.

With his face still buried in his pillow, Flynn brought the phone to his ear and, in his heavy Scottish accent, muttered, "I swear on Mjöllnir, this better be important."

A few moments later, Flynn was wide awake.

* * *

Just a few blocks away from Flynn's apartment was yet another auto garage; or, rather, what _looked_ like an auto garage. Inside, however, was vastly different from what one would find in Flynn's garage. Yes, this one had all the necessary tools and equipment one would need to work on any type of automobile imaginable, just like Flynn's, but there was so much more than that.

Flynn's garage certainly didn't have an adjoining kitchen, nor did it have multiple sets of blast doors leading to different rooms. Flynn's garage also didn't have seven glass display cases against the wall, inside of which were six of the Project Ranger suits, nor did it have computer systems capable of hacking into the universal bio-field to power up the suits, corresponding weapons, and accompanying Zord Attack Vehicles.

Much like Scott, for the young woman with the black bob cut and white lab coat sitting behind one of the many computers throughout the garage as she typed away frantically, today was the day that _she_ had hoped would never come.

The lights in the garage hadn't even been turned on in years, yet Dr. K now had every system in the place up and running as if they had never been turned off at all, praying that she would find the necessary evidence to prove her theory wrong. Resting nearby was an open silver briefcase, inside of which were six Morphers and an empty slot in the very center for the seventh. Slowly, Dr. K looked away from her computer screen, her eyes moving to the left where the Series Red Cell Shift Morpher was currently undergoing a scan in what looked like a miniaturized CAT-Scan machine.

"Well," she muttered to herself, looking back at her screen, "that's one piece of good news."

No sooner had she said the words than a burst of vibrant green light appeared just feet away from her, immediately garnering her full attention. When the light dissipated a moment later, she was looking at Dillon and Summer for the first time in three years. Even though the reason for their meeting was an unpleasant one, she could not contain the smile that overcame her upon seeing them again.

To Dr. K's surprise, as she got up to greet them she noticed that both were wearing their black leather jackets, emblazoned with their respective Ranger colors and call numbers, that she had given to each of them upon first joining the team.

With them was a fully morphed Ziggy — the former Ranger Operator Series Green — who had used his suit's teleportation capabilities to save Dillon and Summer from having to drive the eight hundred or so miles between Millennium City and Corinth.

"Summer, Dillon," said Dr. K as she walked towards them, beaming, "I've missed you both so much."

While Ziggy de-morphed behind them, wearing his own Ranger jacket, Summer smiled back and enveloped Dr. K in a warm hug as she replied, "We've missed you too, Dr. K."

Looking to Dillon, Dr. K teasingly said, "Even you, Ranger Series Black?"

"Don't push it, doc," Dillon chuckled, giving Dr. K a hug of his own.

"Hey," Ziggy interjected, rejoining the group, "Does, uh, does me having my Morpher again mean you're going to stop calling me by my real name now?" he asked of Dr. K.

Before she could reply, though, Dillon was speaking. "What are you talking about?" he said, clasping Ziggy on the shoulder. "You'll always be Ranger Series Green to us."

"Oh, that's real funny —" Ziggy started, but the sound of a car pulling into the front garage stopped him short.

"Who's that?" asked Summer curiously, looking between Dillon and Dr. K.

Holding up a single finger for silence, Dillon listened carefully to the rumbling engine for a few moments. Slowly, a grin spread across his face as he looked up at Summer and said, "Flynn."

Indeed it was. By the time the three former Rangers and Dr. K had made it into the garage, Flynn was already out of his parked blue Hummer and well past the kitchen. The second he set his sights on Dillon and Summer, however, he froze on the spot, staring back at them as though he was unsure they were real.

"Bloody hell, is it really you?" he asked, causing Dillon and Summer to laugh.

"Yes," said Summer, nodding. "It's really us."

Next moment she was running towards Flynn, throwing her arms around him and hugging him with every ounce of strength her body could muster. She, Flynn, and Scott had been Rangers for almost a year before the others had joined the team; for Summer, Flynn and Scott were very much the brothers that she had never had.

"It's great to see you, lass," said Flynn, returning Summer's embrace as Dillon approached from behind her. "And you as well, mate," he added, releasing Summer to greet Dillon with a handshake and brief hug. "What brings you two back to Corinth?"

Neither said anything, they merely turned sideways and stared at Dr. K. Sighing, Dr. K shook her head and said, "I'll explain when everyone's here."

"Everyone?" said Flynn.

"You mean, the others are coming too?" asked Summer.

"Yes," said Dr. K, nodding. "Gem and Gemma should be here with Scott shortly."

Flynn felt his heart skip a beat when he heard Gemma's name. Immediately, he could picture her face in his mind's eye, but he quickly forced himself to think different thoughts. Dwelling on Gemma never left him feeling very good inside.

Thankfully, the arrival of Scott's red import came just in time to distract Flynn. Even though it meant that Gemma was here now, he wouldn't have to worry about her with everyone else around to keep him occupied.

Again, similar greetings were shared amongst the group, particularly when it came to Dillon and Summer. With Ziggy at her side, his arm draped loosely around her shoulder, Dr. K watched from a distance as Scott and Summer embraced, knowing that they only had a matter of moments before their joyful reunion was disturbed.

"Wait," said Scott, holding up his hands as he looked around at all of his friends and former teammates, "What is everyone doing here?"

Only one person knew that, and the looks of confusion and uncertainty that the Rangers shared amongst each other confirmed this.

"I believe I can answer that," Dr. K announced, instantly commanding everyone else's attention. "If you'll please follow me," she added, turning around and heading back through the blast doors.

"Well then," said Flynn, shaking his head, "Good to see some things never change."

Laughing, the other Rangers followed after Dr. K. Catching up to Ziggy, Dillon asked in a near whisper, "What's going on here, Zig? The doc had to have told you _something_. I mean, you guys are engaged."

Ziggy froze on the spot, staring up at Dillon with the most shocked of expressions as the other Rangers filed around them. "H-how did you know that?" he asked frantically. "I — we — no one's even been told yet."

Dillon shrugged and said, "Saw her take off the ring and slip it in her lab coat right after we teleported in." Ziggy looked as if he had just been told that Fresno Bob, the leader of the Scorpion Cartel, had decided they were no longer even. Smirking, Dillon clasped Ziggy's shoulder and said, "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."

Letting out a deep sigh of relief, Ziggy nodded, straightened his jacket out, and said, "Right. Well then, that's settled. Lucky for you, or I would have had to ghost you otherwise."

Shaking his head, Dillon let out a brief chuckle and then motioned for Ziggy to follow as he said, "Come on, Ranger Series Green."

Looking stunned for a moment once more, Ziggy quickly shook his head clear and chased after Dillon. "Hey, I haven't been called that in three years, you know! Now's not the time to start —"

"— the Venjix virus was _not_ completely destroyed in the final battle," said Dr. K from her chair, where the other Rangers were surrounding her.

"What?" Ziggy blurted, everyone else turning around to face him. "What do you mean it wasn't destroyed? We all watched the control tower crush him into a pancake."

Dr. K sighed. "Venjix was more than just his bodily form, Ranger Gr — I mean, Ziggy. Sorry, having the team around again is bringing back old habits."

"Yeah, yeah," said Ziggy, with a dismissive wave as the others shared smirks, "Just keep going. How is Venjix still alive?"

"That's hard to say, really," answered Dr. K. "There are a number of possible explanations, all of which are statistically more improbable than the next. I can't say for certain, but somehow the Venjix virus was able to upload itself into one of your Morphers."

General murmurs of disbelief chorused throughout the group as Summer asked, "Whose?"

Looking to his right, at the open briefcase on the table filled with Morphers, Scott suddenly knew the answer. "Mine," he murmured hoarsely, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. Raising his eyes slowly, he looked to Dr. K and said, "What does this mean, Doctor?"

"It means that, if the Series Red Morpher were to be activated again, the Venjix virus could be unleashed in full force once more."

"How did you even find this out?" asked Scott.

"Well, that's part of why you're all here," said Dr. K, looking to each of the Rangers individually. "You're needed again; for another mission. All of you."

A few of the Rangers looked confused, not Gem and Gemma though.

"But that means —" started Gemma excitedly.

"— boom time!" finished Gem, giving his sister a high-five.

As Gem and Gemma made noises and hand gestures to simulate explosions, Dillon looked at Dr. K and said, "What kind of mission are we talking about here, doc?"

"The kind of mission that requires you to travel a century and a half into the past," said Dr. K seriously, leaving everyone else, including Gem and Gemma, staring back at her blankly.

"Uh," began Ziggy, "Am I the only one who thought they heard her say we have to travel into the past?"

"Odin's beard, woman, you must be mad!" declared Flynn. "Traveling in time, you say? It's not even possible."

"Oh, it is possible," said Dr. K. "It's very, _very_ possible. In fact, I've been spending every day since Project Ranger ended working on a way to accomplish time-travel. Using the electrical bio-field that surrounds the planet, I was able to access the space-time continuum long enough to create a spacial wormhole capable of successfully sending things back and forth through time. I know it was successful because I've tried it already."

Ziggy looked to be in total disbelief, unable to fathom how Dr. K could have done something like that while still having time to run the children's school they had opened together following Venjix's demise. The others, however, seemed none too concerned with this.

"But Dr. K," Gem began, scratching the side of his head, "Why would we need to go —"

"— to the past?" finished Gemma, looking equally confused.

"Yeah, what the Boom Happy Twins said," added Ziggy.

"Because your existence in the present day depends on it," answered Dr. K. "If you aren't successful in this mission, your present day selves will cease to exist."

"Ah, there's the silver lining I was — wait, what?" said Ziggy, staring at Dr. K with a dumbfounded expression.

"Here," said Dr. K, turning around in her chair to face her computer. Typing away for a few moments in silence, she then went on, "Watch this."

As the Rangers gathered around Dr. K's chair to see the screen, a video started playing of a man in his late twenties or early thirties, with chocolate brown eyes and dark brown hair done in small, stylish spikes. He was wearing an un-tucked white dress shirt and blue jeans, and his expression was clearly tired.

Seated on a black couch in a dark room, the man looked directly into the camera and began speaking.

"_My name is Tommy Oliver, and for over fifteen years I have led or been a part of several different teams of Power Rangers, super-powered humans tasked with protecting the planet from any and all invaders. In the year 2004, I mentored my own team of Power Rangers, the Dino Thunder team, and also served as the Black Brachio Ranger under Conner McKnight, the Red Tyranno Ranger. Along with the rest of the team, we were able to defeat the evil Mesogog, a dinosaur-human hybrid determined to revert the Earth to the Jurassic Era._

"_Unfortunately, it was just four years later when a new and more powerful threat appeared on Earth. With the Dino Thunder powers destroyed in the final battle against Mesogog, and no current active team on Earth to defend it, I turned to the only people I could trust; those I had served with as leader of the Mighty Morphin', Zeo, and Turbo Power Rangers. Luckily, I was able to contact one of my former teammates, Billy, on the distant planet of Aquitar. Billy was our resident genius during the early years and I knew that I would need his help if there was to be any hope of stopping this new threat._

"_After months of work, Billy was able to tap into the Universal Morphing Grid in order to re-power the five original Power Coins, as well as the White Tigerzord Coin created specifically for me. By that time, however, the damage to Earth had been done. Several major cities were — and continue to be — destroyed, and though my teammates and I continue to fight back every day, I don't know how much longer we can hold out. I know you probably won't be able to help us, and that we will all likely be long dead before you even see this video, but I want the world to know that we never stopped fighting. Let the history books show that Jason Scott, Adam Park, Billy Cranston, Aisha Campbell, Kimberly Hart, and myself kept fighting until our very last breaths."_

With that, the screen went suddenly black. Before anyone could ask any questions, though, Dr. K was already typing away again, bringing up a screen with a white background and black text running across it.

"In the year 2010, Earth came closer to total destruction than it had in its entire history, and closer than it would ever come again until the Venjix virus was unleashed nearly one-hundred and fifty years later," said Dr. K, reading directly from the electronic history textbook on her screen. "Two years prior, aliens had begun to emigrate from their home worlds, initially in very small quantities so as to remain undetected. However, the alien presence on Earth was eventually brought to light, and with it came the Earth-branch of the intergalactic police force, Space Patrol Delta, in May of 2010.

"For nearly two years, the aliens of Earth were able to co-exist with humans, primarily by living in same-race communities, or large metropolitan areas where their presence would be more accepted. The final months of 2008 brought about a change, though. Several of the alien races began to unite under the shared goal of controlling the entire planet, eventually unleashing a reign of terror that lasted well over a year. The resurfaced Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers fought valiantly, but their technology was vastly inferior to what would come to be collectively known as the Alien Rebel Collective, or ARC. All hope seemed lost.

"It was only in February of 2010, as the Rangers of Earth did battle with the ARC yet again, that hope was finally restored. Arriving to aid the Mighty Morphin' team was an unknown and never-before-seen team of Power Rangers. Like the Mighty Morphin' team, their identities were never learned. They stayed for only fifteen days, with weapons and Zords unlike anything the world had ever seen before, and though their presence was short lived, it was more than enough to sway the favors of battle back to humanity's side. With the ranks of the ARC severely diminished, and their arsenal severely damaged, the group was rendered unable to continue launching large scale attacks, and by the time they had regrouped their forces, SPD had already evolved into a law enforcement group big enough to thwart any future attacks against the planet.

"Still, it goes without saying that humanity's very existence today is because of these two teams of Rangers: the Mighty Morphin' team, who never stopped fighting for one moment; and this unknown team, who bravely intervened in a fight that was not theirs. Though it is almost certain that we will never know the true identities of the men and women underneath the helmets, anyone who is reading this today has them to thank for it; they, the unknown soldiers."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," said Ziggy, looking around at the other Rangers with a disbelieving expression. Finally, his eyes settled on Dr. K and he went on, "You can't seriously think that this unknown team is us, can you?"

"I hate to say it Dr. K, but it does seem pretty far-fetched," Summer added, looking almost regretful about it. "I read all about the Rangers of the 20th and 21st Centuries in my high school history class. A lot of the teams never lost their powers, and just as many stayed active long after their own threat had been defeated. I mean, there had to have been at least half a dozen teams with active powers at that time."

Dr. K slowly looked around at Summer and shook her head. "No, there weren't. The Space team was dealing with an off-world crisis at the time; Operation: Lightspeed Rescue was abandoned in the fall of 2004; the magic of the Mystic Force was useless against the alien invaders; and Operation: Overdrive was disbanded following the defeat of Flurious."

"Wasn't there another team?" asked Summer.

"Yeah, there was," said Flynn. "For the life of me, I can't remember what they were called. I think it was something like Jungle —"

"— Fury," said Gemma, Flynn staring back at her with his mouth hanging half open.

She had just finished one of his sentences. Never before had she finished a sentence for anyone else except her brother; not even her oldest friend, Dr. K. He didn't want to think too much of it, but as they locked eyes momentarily, with Gemma smiling back at him, Flynn suddenly felt like they had entered uncharted territory.

"Jungle Fury?" said Dr. K, with something of a bitter chuckle, interrupting Flynn's thoughts. "You would trust the fate of humanity to the Jungle Fury Rangers? I would trust a team composed entirely of Ziggy-clones over the Jungle Fury Rangers. The purple one was the only competent one."

"Y-you really mean that?" said Ziggy, genuinely caught off guard as he held his hands against his chest.

"Yes," said Dr. K, nodding, "But don't get too excited, your ego's big enough as it is already. Besides, like I said, the purple one was the only one worth his weight in more than scrapped Grinder parts."

"Okay, fine, let's say it _is_ us that are supposed to help the Mighty Morphin' team," Scott interjected. "How can we do that if my Morpher is hosting the Venjix virus? That thing you were reading said the unknown Rangers had Zords. Without my Morpher we can't call the Paleo Zords, nor can we form the Road Blaster, the RPM Enforcer, the High Octane Megazord, the Zenith Megazord, the SkyRev Megazord, or the Ultrazord."

Dr. K, who had looked like she was growing increasingly bored as Scott went on, finally said, "Are you quite done yet?" Scott just looked back at her blankly, seemingly unsure how to respond to that, leaving her to go on, "I've known for some time that this day would probably come, so a couple of weeks ago I began checking the Morphers, weapons, and Zords, just to make sure everything was still functional. Initial scans showed that everything was fine, but secondary Morpher scans detected a malfunction within the Series Red Morpher.

"It took a few days, but eventually I was able to uncover the Venjix virus. Accordingly, I began working on a firewall to keep the virus frozen in one location. I've only just finished it, and while it's not completely perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it will suffice for the mission at hand. The only part of your usual arsenal that will not be available to you is your three-second Burst Attack."

"You're absolutely sure?" asked Scott hesitantly.

"I deal in statistical probabilities, Ranger Red, a place where absoluteness is almost never achieved," said Dr. K. "That being said, I am fairly confident that the only deficiency you will notice is the loss of your Burst Attack. Otherwise, everything else should continue to operate as you're used to."

"I don't like the sound of that, doc," said Scott, looking apprehensive. "What happens if the Venjix virus is released in the past?"

Dr. K let out an annoyed sigh. "It _won't_ be. Don't you understand? You and the other Rangers going back in time is _supposed_ to happen. I'm _supposed_ to build a firewall that can prevent the Venjix virus from escaping. In our past, the past that has already taken place, the Venjix virus wasn't released. I've done what I'm supposed to do in our present to ensure that. Now it's up to the seven of you to ensure that humanity survives long enough to —"

"— be decimated by the Venjix virus a hundred and fifty years later?" Dillon supplied, his eyes narrowed in a way that refused to reveal his position.

"Well, when you put it that way…," said Dr. K.

"Alright, look, let's say we do this and go back in time," said Scott, looking directly at Dr. K. "How do we make contact with the Mighty Morphin' team? And, more importantly, how do we get back once the mission is completed?"

"As leader of the team, Ranger Red, the first question is yours to answer," said Dr. K. "As to how you'll get back to the present…I'll be able to monitor you from here through your Morphers, and you'll still be able to use them to contact me. When your mission has been completed, I'll reopen the wormhole to bring you back into the present."

Sighing, Scott shook his head and said, "I don't know about this." Looking around slowly at his teammates, he asked, "What do you guys think?"

Flynn shrugged. "It's your call, mate. I'm with you either way."

With Dillon's hand on her shoulder, Summer took hold of it and said, "Us too."

"We just want —" started Gem.

"— to blow stuff up!" finished Gemma.

"Well, I can't exactly say no when everyone else has said yes, can I?" said Ziggy.

Looking down, Scott shook his head and muttered, "I guess that settles it then." Slowly raising his eyes as he looked around to Dr. K, he quietly asked, "So, what do we do?"


	2. First Encounters

_**Title: War**_

_**Chapter Two — "First Encounters"**_

_**Original Posting Date: June 14, 2010**_

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Tommy Oliver was a restless man; this was nothing new. He had always been the take-charge type, never one to sit around waiting for something to happen, yet tonight there was something that felt different.

After months upon months of fighting with no tangible accomplishments, suffering heavier and heavier losses as time wore on, Tommy wanted nothing more than to lay down and sleep for a very, very long time. His body, his mind, his heart…he did not think that they could take much more of this abuse.

Bruised across his arms, chest, and torso, Tommy laid in his bed at home in Reefside, California, tossing and turning endlessly as he sought the deep rest that seemingly did not want to come. It was well past three in the morning, but how could he honestly be expected to sleep when his mind was so preoccupied?

He and the other Rangers had spent the last four hours engaged in battle with the ARC, draining nearly all the power of both the Thunder Megazord and Tigerzord in the process. It would be at least eight more hours of recharging before the Zords were at full power again, leaving Tommy's stomach in knots as he thought of what would happen if the ARC attacked before then.

It was a battle they could never win, that much was certain.

Letting out an angry grunt at his inability to fall asleep, Tommy tossed the sheets aside and climbed out of bed, pulling on a pair of gym shorts before heading to the kitchen. Much to his surprise, as he approached from the hallway he saw that he was not the only one awake, evident only from the faint refrigerator light appearing, disappearing, reappearing, and then disappearing again for good.

Knowing that it could only be one of two people, Tommy crossed the darkened threshold into the kitchen and flipped the switch on the wall, causing an audible gasp as a startled Kimberly Hart was revealed. She was holding a carton of orange juice near her lips in an almost comical fashion, some of the contents of the carton having spilled down her chest and white tank top in the process.

Tommy had to fight himself not to laugh as he walked towards her, but his grin was simply uncontainable. "That's a good look on you," he said, pointing at her shirt as he removed the carton from her hand and took a long drink.

Looking down at herself for the first time, Kimberly let out a groan as she rolled her eyes in disgust. "Damn it, Tommy, look what you made me do," she replied, moving towards the sink.

"Are you saying I made you wet and sticky?" Tommy countered, the words flying from his lips before he could stop himself. The last thing he wanted to do was push the boundaries considering the way they had left things in their last conversation.

Turning on the faucet with her back to him, Kimberly briefly ran a towel under the cold water and then began washing the orange juice from her skin as she murmured, "Well, it wouldn't be the first time, now would it?"

Caught off guard by her reply, Tommy found himself in a dumbfounded silence. When Kimberly did not say anything else, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, allowing himself to remember what had happened just hours ago.

He could vividly picture Kimberly defying his orders, detaching her Firebird Zord from the Thunder Megazord, and then proving him wrong in a matter of minutes by singlehandedly eliminating seven of the ARC's Goliath Rovers, colossal humanoid robots piloted by the mere thoughts of the lone warrior inside each one. However, he could also see the several near misses from the Goliath's arsenal of short-range shoulder missiles, intense heat waves distributed via the eyes, and energy beams with varying degrees of strength, which burst from the Goliath's palms. One of those energy beams had successfully hit its target, destroying one of the Firebird's twin-engines, and nearly killing Kimberly in the process.

Then there was the argument that had erupted between them once they had docked the Zords and returned back to the house, an argument that saw Kimberly sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms for the first time in months. She had defied his leadership in one of the worst possible ways, and for that she had needed to know that he was angry.

At the same time, Tommy could not pretend like he didn't understand Kimberly's point of view. They had never dealt with that many Goliaths before, and the sheer numbers were simply too much for the Megazord and Tigerzord to handle in a straight-up fight. The Zords were quickly running out of power, and if something drastic didn't happen in a hurry to change the tide…well, let's just say the results would have been bleak.

Deep down, he knew that the move she had made was a good one, especially when considering that he, the leader, had not been able to come up with any better ideas. Plus, in retrospect, it was a move he could have easily seen himself making had they been able to reactivate the Ninja Zords instead of the Thunder fleet and he had been piloting his Falcon Zord.

Watching Kimberly with narrowed eyes, Tommy let out a quiet sigh and said, "I'm sorry."

Kimberly's shoulders seemed to deflate a bit as she set the towel down and slowly turned around. Leaning against the counter, she folded her arms across her chest and said, "Do you even know why I was—I mean, why I _am _mad?"

"I think I do, yeah," he replied, nodding, "But you have to understand, Kim…it's not that I don't think you're a capable Ranger. I know you are. I wouldn't have made you my second-in-command if I thought otherwise; especially not over Jason, of all people. At the same time, though, there's no denying that what you did out there today was reckless; impressive, yes, but still reckless. You disobeyed my orders and left the rest of us high and dry. Without your Zord, Jason, Adam, Billy, and Aisha had to resort to their individual configurations. Jason can handle that with the Red Dragon Zord's Warrior Mode, but the other three aren't equipped to deal with a Goliath Rover on their own. If not for Jason and I keeping the Goliaths somewhat occupied while you did your thing, those three might not have even made it out of today's fight alive. Losing one Ranger is unacceptable, let alone three, no matter how many Goliath Rovers you destroy in the process."

Kimberly opened her mouth, seemingly poised to offer a rebuttal, but then closed her mouth just as quickly, apparently thinking better of it. For a few silent moments she eyed Tommy carefully while trying to craft a legitimate argument in her head. Unfortunately, she was hard pressed to find one.

Tommy was right. Her actions, while undoubtedly successful, were also terribly ill conceived and, as he had pointed out, reckless to no avail. Never one to give in easily, Kimberly found herself face to face with the realization that there was really no other option in this scenario.

Letting out a sigh, she nodded her head and said, "You're right. Even though I wasn't intentionally trying to endanger the rest of the team, that's what I ended up doing. It's just…I'm so sick of going out there every single day and barely scraping by. It's like every day is just another can of whoop ass waiting to be opened on us. We aren't making any progress defeating the ARC, their weapons are getting stronger, and ours, plain and simple, aren't. At this rate, it won't be long before we're wishing for days like today. When I saw that opportunity to do some serious damage for once, I just had to take it."

Tommy smirked. "I know you did. I probably would have done the same exact thing if I had had the chance."

Kimberly's expression remained quite serious as she murmured in reply, "I'm scared, Tommy. It — it's never been like this before. I mean, sure, sometimes Rita and Zedd came up with an unusually strong monster, or a plan that took us a little bit longer than usual to stop, but I never doubted our ability to eventually beat them. Now, though, I — I'm not so sure that we can win this one."

While Tommy had always been the type to encourage his teammates to think on the positive side, there was no denying that Kimberly had a point. Giving her a small smile, Tommy motioned for her to come to him, wrapping her in his arms and kissing the top of her head when she had.

"I know you're scared," he whispered, holding her close. "I'm scared too, but that's why we need to stick together, now more than ever. Our backs are really up against the wall on this one. We have to be sure of what we're doing at all times, or the slightest mistake could lead to something terrible."

Squeezing Tommy tightly around his midsection, Kimberly gave a quiet sniffle and asked, "Do you honestly think we can win, Tommy?"

With his chin resting atop Kimberly's head, Tommy let out a sigh and closed his eyes as he answered, "I honestly don't know, Beautiful. My heart wants to believe that we can, but my head is telling me that we're fighting a losing battle. Regardless of which one is right, though, I'm sure of at least one thing."

"What's that?"

"I'm never going to stop fighting. Never," Tommy replied in a near whisper. "They'll have to kill me before that happens."

Kimberly, who had flinched in his arms at the word _kill_, slowly looked up and said, "I wish it hadn't taken this long to find our way back to each other. There's so much we could have done…two years feels more like two days."

In an instant, Tommy could remember locking eyes with Kimberly for the first time since Aisha and Rocky's wedding two years prior, where they had spent hours on the dance floor only to end the night with a simple kiss on the cheek from Kimberly. There had clearly been a spark that night, but neither had been willing to break the barriers of the friendship they had spent so long rebuilding, especially not when they lived on opposite sides of the country.

But then the attacks started, and the need to resurrect the Mighty Morphin' team meant the need to choose the team itself. With no Zordon around to do it for him, the responsibility of selecting the newest team became Tommy's. Some of the spots had been filled fairly automatically, like Billy, who was the only one to ever hold the Triceratops Power Coin, and Jason, who resumed his role as Red Ranger due to the back injury that had never quite stopped ailing Rocky.

Others, however, had not been so easy. How was he supposed to choose between Aisha and Trini, both of whom were extremely capable Rangers? Of course, he ran into the same problem when it came to Adam and Zack, and needless to say, choosing the Pink Ranger had been the hardest decision of them all.

In the end, his decision was based on the experience of the Rangers and their willingness to take the mantle up one more time. Adam, who had returned to help the Space and Overdrive teams, on top of three years he had spent as an active Ranger, was a natural choice to become the new Black Ranger.

His first choice for Yellow Ranger, however, had not been Aisha. Though he loved Aisha, Trini brought a quiet serenity to the team, as well as a level of skill in hand-to-hand combat that Aisha didn't have. Unfortunately, Trini's father had been stricken with terminal liver cancer several months prior, and her mother was not nearly able-bodied enough to care for her husband alone. Even with all that was taking place around them, Tommy still understood Trini's need to take care of her family. Truthfully, he was just happy to have such a reliable second choice in Aisha.

But then there came the decision of Pink Ranger, which he had intentionally saved for last. There was no logical route he could take here, no easy way out. Katherine and Kimberly were both extremely qualified as Rangers, and both were at a place in their lives where they could reclaim their old positions. With no easy answer in front of him, Tommy went with the only thing he could; gut instinct.

There had always been a profound sense of comfort that he felt when he had been on the field of battle with Kimberly, knowing that she had his back, and it was that feeling that had inevitably led to him asking her to return to the team. The decision to have her and Jason move in with him had been more out of necessity than anything else, since they were the only ones who were no longer living in the area.

For days and weeks on end the pair had tested the waters when they weren't combating the ARC, dancing around each other just like they had in high school. Only this time, their trepidation was not the byproduct of adolescent fears and uncertainty. Rather, it was the direct result of having spent several years carefully rebuilding a friendship that neither had truly believed could survive their high school breakup.

That had all come crashing down one February afternoon though, on Kimberly's birthday, oddly enough. Just over two years later, Tommy could not help but feel like everything that happened that day was meant to occur that way.

Not only had it been an unusually warm and sunny day for the middle of February, but the myriad of energy scanners in his basement had not picked up a single trace of ARC activity since he had awoken that morning. It almost seemed too good to be true.

The plan for that evening had been dinner at Kimberly's favorite Mexican restaurant in Stone Canyon, followed by a trip to a karaoke bar in downtown Los Angeles. Jason, who had had a bit of last minute birthday shopping to do before dinner, had gone out earlier, leaving Tommy to wait for Kimberly while she got ready; alone, almost as if it was supposed to happen that way.

He was sitting in the living room, watching the newest James Bond movie, _Casino Royale_, when a piercing scream reached his ears from down the hall. Without even a moment's hesitation he was on his feet, rushing to the bathroom, and tearing the door straight from its hinges with a powerful shoulder-charge. The sight on the other side, however, was not what he had been expecting to find.

There was no danger whatsoever. The shower curtain had been pulled away, leaving Kimberly staring back at Tommy in shock with her arm frozen in midair, reaching for a towel from the nearby rack. As he would learn later, the shower water had merely gone cold unexpectedly, but at that moment his mind could process nothing more than the fact that he was seeing her naked for the first time in his entire life, dripping wet no less.

As realization set in that Kimberly was not in any immediate trouble, he started expecting her to become angry with him for bursting in on her like that, but again, he was left surprised. Instead of being mad, a wide smirk slowly started spreading out across Kimberly's face as she forgot about the towel, stood straight, and boldly proclaimed, "Well, now that you've seen mine, I'd say it's only fair that I get to see yours."

Needless to say, they were more than a little late for dinner that evening. And while to this day neither could explain why they had taken the next step, or why that day had been so much different than all the others, neither was complaining about it either. Sure, they had their fair share of arguments, just like any other couple, but over the course of the last two years, both had also admitted a number of times to each other that they had never been happier with anyone else.

Now, standing in his kitchen with his arms around Kimberly and her head tucked under his chin, Tommy could do little more than sigh. "I know what you mean," he replied softly. "It doesn't seem like it's been two years at all. But the fact of the matter is that, if we want to have a future together — and I mean a _real_ future — then we can't stop fighting. For me, the chance of a future with you is worth fighting for. It's worth dying for."

Kimberly gave a quiet sniffle and increased the pressure with which she held onto Tommy, but otherwise remained silent and still for quite some time. Tommy's declaration that his love for her was worth dying for had left a whirlwind of thoughts spinning across her mind: things she was proud of and things she regretted; people she loved and people she had lost; what she wanted to do and what she needed to do.

Finally, she pulled back slightly and raised her eyes to meet Tommy's. Slowly, her arms moved from around his waist into a loose, loopy hold around his neck. Keeping her eyes locked firmly on Tommy's, her face was free of any and all emotion as she said in a near whisper, "I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to die fighting for every single human life left on this planet, and I'm not afraid to die fighting for you and for us. What I feel for you, I — I can't explain it. I've been in love with other men before, but this is so much more than that. I just — I know in my heart that you're it. You're my endgame, Tommy."

Truthfully, Tommy was not sure how to react. On one hand, it warmed a very large part of him to know that he meant as much to Kimberly as she meant to him. On the other hand, however, it seemed like her words were leading to something more, something bigger, and what that was, he had no idea.

Instead of trying to push the issue, though, Tommy simply did his best to react as naturally as possible. With a small smile, he took Kimberly's face in his hands and placed a long, soft kiss to her lips. When he finally pulled back a short while later, he pressed his forehead to Kimberly's and quietly said, "You know how much you mean to me, Beautiful. I love you more than anything and anyone on Earth. I spent more than a decade trying to find someone who could make me feel the way you do, but these last two years have taught me that there isn't another person like that out there for me. It's you, and it's always been you, even when I didn't necessarily want it to be."

Kimberly could not help but to smile at that. With her thoughts and mind clearer than they had been in quite awhile, she returned her eyes to Tommy's and said, very simply, "I want to marry you, Tommy."

Again, Tommy found himself in a place where he did not know how to react. They had only talked about marriage once before, a few months back, but the conversation had been interrupted by an ARC attack before it could really get started and neither had broached the topic since.

Narrowing his eyes, Tommy studied her face carefully as he replied, "You're serious?"

Biting her lip ever so slightly, Kimberly nodded and said, "I've never been more serious about anything in my entire life. I know how I feel about you, and while I don't exactly _want_ to die any time soon, if I'm going to die in this battle, I want it to be as your wife."

"I thought you always wanted a big wedding with tons of people and everything?" Tommy murmured. "You know we would never be able to pull something like that off with everything that's going on right now."

"I know," said Kimberly softly. "It doesn't have to be a big to-do. I just want to marry you. Then, if we make it out of this thing alive —"

"_When_ we make it out alive, you mean," Tommy quickly interjected, his eyes and words carrying a firmness that left Kimberly startled for a moment.

Then she smiled. "Right," she said, nodding again, "_When_ we make it out of this thing alive, we can have a real celebration with all of our friends and family there. Right now, though, I'm willing to take whatever we can get."

Tommy gave a small smirk. "You _really _want to get married, huh? You're sure about that?"

"Tommy," Kimberly began, "I will get in the car right now and drive to Vegas if that's what it's going to take."

Chuckling briefly, Tommy shook his head and said, "We don't have to go to Vegas. The honest truth is that I've been thinking about this — about getting married — for awhile now. I was going to wait until everything else was over before I proposed, but if you really want to do it now, then we can start looking into it first thing tomorrow morning; outside interference notwithstanding obviously."

Grinning broadly, Kimberly pulled Tommy down to her level and kissed him with everything she could muster. "I love you so much," she murmured when the kiss finally broke nearly a full minute later.

"I love you too, Beautiful," said Tommy, smiling brightly. Letting his left arm drop, he gently took hold of Kimberly's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Why don't you get out of that guest room and come back to bed? It's lonely in there without you."

Kimberly merely nodded and allowed Tommy to lead the way. Though it was at least a few hours later, Tommy felt like it had only been a few minutes when a wailing alarm reached his ears, waking him from the sleep that had finally come after he and Kimberly had spent quite some time "celebrating" their new engagement.

Untangling himself from Kimberly, Tommy groggily flipped over and started slapping at his alarm clock, silently wondering why it was going off when he could not recall having set it the night before. Then there came a pounding on the door several seconds later, making him realize that it was not his alarm clock at all.

"Tommy, wake your ass up…now!" yelled Jason, beating on the door a few more times. A moment later, Tommy could hear him doing the same to the other bedroom door while yelling for Kimberly, unsurprisingly oblivious to the fact that the pair had reconciled during the middle of the night.

In a matter of seconds, both Tommy and Kimberly were up and out of bed, having realized that the alarm was the result of the energy scanners in the basement. The ARC was attacking.

As the pair scrambled to put on clothes — basketball shorts and a tee shirt for Tommy, sweats and a tank top for Kimberly — Tommy began to remember part of what it was that had been keeping him awake the night before. Checking the clock to see that it was just after seven-thirty, he came face-to-face with the knowledge that the Zords, which were an absolute necessity in the fight against the ARC, would not be fully charged for at least four more hours.

They could make do with partial power in a small engagement, but if it was anything like last night, Tommy knew in his heart that they would be lucky to escape with their lives intact, much less the Zords. Of course, this was not a sentiment that he was about to share with his teammates, especially not with Kimberly, whom hours prior he had been so bold in telling that they would eventually win this fight.

Rushing out of the bedroom, the alarm ceased just as they found that the trapdoor under the rug in the hallway had already been opened, at which point they hastened to descend the staircase into the basement, Tommy only stopping long enough to pull the trapdoor closed.

Once in the basement, they found Jason standing behind a black leather chair, watching the movements on several nearby computer screens. Approaching the chair from behind, Tommy eventually saw a head of red hair and immediately called out, "When did you get here, Hayley?"

This was Hayley Ziktor, Tommy's longtime friend from college and the former technical advisor to the Dino Thunder Rangers. It was she who had built nearly every piece of equipment in the basement, which had also served as a Command Center for the Dino Thunder team. Fortunately, Tommy had introduced Hayley to the rest of the Rangers several years prior, so there was no awkward period of adjustment when, at Tommy's request, she had returned to her previous role in support of the new team.

"Just a few minutes ago," she answered, not bothering to look back as her hands flew across the keyboard in front of her.

Tommy nodded as he and Kimberly came to a stop behind the chair, Jason standing to Tommy's left. "So what's going on?" Tommy asked.

"It looks like a fleet of Alpha Cruisers approaching Tokyo," Hayley replied.

Tommy groaned. Alpha Cruisers were small, fixed wing aircrafts, each one armed with enough explosives to level several square miles of whichever city they were attacking. They were also incredibly fast which, along with their diminutive size, made them incredibly difficult to destroy in the slow, rather bulky Megazord. To make matters worse, Tokyo was one of the last major national capitals that had not yet been destroyed. Along with the seaside city, only Berlin, Beijing, Cairo, London, and Washington D.C. still remained whole.

Capital cities were almost always the most important, whole nations usually dependent on the government and infrastructure held within their borders to survive. Tommy could only imagine the chaos that would ensue throughout America if its citizens woke up tomorrow morning to find that Washington D.C. had been completely obliterated.

"We should probably get going then," he muttered, shaking his head. "Have you contacted the others yet?"

"Yep," said Hayley, nodding. "They're standing by for invisiportals now. As soon as you three leave, they'll be there to join you."

"No," said Tommy firmly, shaking his head again.

"What?" replied Hayley blankly, turning around to face him for the first time.

"I said 'no,'" repeated Tommy. "The Zords aren't fully charged yet, and all that we'll be able to do against Alpha Cruisers in the Megazord is waste power. They're way too fast for it."

"So what do you suggest then?" questioned Hayley, her eyes narrowed at Tommy.

For a few moments, Tommy remained silent, obviously trying to formulate a plan. Finally, he let out a sigh that sounded almost defeated, like he could think of no other option. "There's one thing that might work," he muttered, slowly looking to Kimberly, "But it's risky."

Seemingly knowing exactly what Tommy was thinking, Kimberly nodded and said, "You want me to take them out in the Firebird."

Tommy nodded as well. "Jason and I can use our Zords in Warrior Mode to distract them for you. Aside from the Red Dragon Zord, yours is the only one that can fly, but it's also the only one small enough and fast enough to take the Cruisers out efficiently. I know I can't make you do it, but —"

"I'll do it," said Kimberly confidently, giving Tommy a smile to reinforce this confidence. Remembering what had caused their argument last night, Kimberly gave his hand a gentle squeeze and murmured, "Thank you for trusting me with this."

Wearing his own smile, Tommy returned the hand squeeze and quietly said, "I've always trusted you, Kim."

"Okay, okay, enough of the sappy stuff," Jason interjected, rolling his eyes. "Let's go out there and blow the shit out of those things."

Chuckling, Tommy nodded and said, "Hayley, keep the others on standby just in case, alright?"

Looking more than a bit uncertain with Tommy's decision, Hayley shook her head and muttered, "Whatever you say, Tommy. I just hope this works."

"It will," said Tommy with conviction. "Have faith, Hayley. I do."

He added that last part while looking at Kimberly, who smiled appreciatively back at him. "Let's do it," she said.

Grinning, Tommy looked over his shoulder at Jason and said, "You ready, bro?"

With a smirk, Jason nodded and said, "Always."

Turning around, with Kimberly on his right and Jason on his left, Tommy said, "Then it's morphin' time!"

In unison, the trio thrust their hands behind their backs just as a crackling whirlpool of black and green energy appeared over their heads, literally sucking them in like a vacuum. From her seat, Hayley could see simultaneous bursts of pink, red, and white light just as the invisiportal snapped shut overhead.

More than five-thousand miles away, another portal had appeared above the northernmost of the two Tokyo Towers, three fully morphed Rangers dropping onto the rooftop just moments later as the portal again snapped shut. From here, they could turn in a small circle and see the entire city, no one below knowing that they were perhaps just minutes away from being attacked.

"Hayley," said Tommy, speaking into a communication device she had installed in his helmet, "How far out are the Alpha Cruisers from our location?"

"_Two hundred kilometers and approaching fast; when these things can actually reach top speed they're faster than the _Mig 31_, though, and that jet can reach three thousand kilometers per hour. At that rate, they'll be there in less than five minutes."_

"So what you're saying is that we need to get our asses in gear then, right?" replied Tommy rather dryly.

"_That would be the idea, yeah."_

Rolling his eyes beneath his helmet, Tommy looked between his two teammates and said, "You know what to do."

With that, Jason and Kimberly raised their arms to the sky and called out, "We need Thunder Zord power, now!"

"Pterodactyl-Firebird Thunder Zord power!" yelled Kimberly.

"Tyrannosaurus-Red Dragon Thunder Zord power!" bellowed Jason.

Off in the distance, their Zords could be heard almost at once, letting out their individual cries as they approached at rapid speeds. While this was going on, Tommy had drawn his talking saber, Saba, from its sheath. "You ready, old friend?" he asked of his sword.

"Of course, Tommy," Saba replied, leaving Tommy to briefly contemplate, for what had to be the millionth time, why his sword spoke with an English accent.

Shaking his head, Tommy thrust Saba towards the sun and shouted, "Tigerzord power, now!"

The Rangers only had to wait a few moments before their Zords appeared, Kimberly's and Jason's racing across the sky while Tommy's thundered down the streets of downtown Tokyo, leaping effortlessly over cars and people alike en route to its destination.

As soon as the Zords were within reach, the Rangers leapt from the building without speaking another word to each other. Kimberly and Jason turned into blurs of pink and red that were pulled towards their Zords, almost magnetically, while Tommy dropped straight down, landing safely atop the head of the running Tigerzord.

Simultaneously, Tommy and Saba spoke, "White Tigerzord, Tiger Mode, battle ready, now!"

With that, Tommy dropped into the cockpit of the Tigerzord just as it reared its head back and started running faster. The moment he was in his seat, Hayley was in his ear once more. _"Tommy, they're coming in from the east side over Tokyo Bay. You only have a couple more minutes to get there before them."_

"We're on our way, Hayley," Tommy replied, trying not to sound irritated. "I can't make this thing run any faster, you know." With that, he switched over to Kimberly's frequency and said, "Kim, you can get there before both of us. If you're willing to go in temporarily without support, you have my permission."

It was a desperate move — the idea of sending Kimberly in by herself left him with a twisted feeling in his stomach — but it was also a necessary move if they were to have any chance of heading off at least some of the Alpha Cruisers before they could reach the mainland and start inflicting real damage.

"On it," said Kimberly simply, without even the slightest bit of hesitation.

Overhead, Tommy could see her bank hard to her right, tearing off at speeds that were vastly superior to those of the other five Zords. Secretly, it made him miss the days when they had been able to fly side-by-side in their Crane and Falcon Ninja Zords.

These thoughts would have kept him occupied for the length of the Tigerzord's journey to Tokyo Bay, but after just two minutes, Hayley was speaking to him again. _"Tommy, I've just located three unidentifiable aircrafts approaching Kimberly's position from the north. They're moving even faster than the Alpha Cruisers."_

"What?" Tommy barked. Had he really just sent Kimberly, by herself, into an ambush? "Are they ARC?"

"_I don't know. That's why I said they're unidentifiable."_

Muttering beneath his breath, Tommy switched back over to Kimberly's frequency and said, "Kim, Hayley's detected three aircrafts approaching you from the north. She doesn't know what they are, so they're probably not ARC, but there's no way to be sure whose side they're on. Jason and I will be there within two or three minutes, but if they get there before us and you feel threatened, don't hesitate to open fire."

It took several silent moments of waiting before Tommy finally got an answer. Even then, though, it was only a very basic, "Copy that."

Groaning to himself, Tommy could do nothing more than pray that he had not sent Kimberly to her death as he waited for the Tigerzord to reach its destination. From there, it was only a matter of time before those thoughts were parlayed into others, like how he knew with certainty that he would never be able to live with himself if Kimberly ended up dying because of a stupid decision on his part.

Fortunately, that was not to be the case on this particular day. They were no more than ninety seconds away from Tokyo Bay when Kimberly's voice entered his helmet. "They're gone, Tommy; all of them."

"What?" he replied, "Who?"

"All of them," Kimberly repeated. "Those three planes Hayley saw and all of the Alpha Cruisers, the latter of which are now floating through Tokyo Bay in thousands of tiny little pieces. Only, I don't think they were planes, Tommy…"

"What were they?"

"I —" began Kimberly, hesitating for a moment, "I think they were Zords. I've never seen anything like them before."

Caught off guard, Tommy stammered, "D-did you just say Zords?"

"I'm not positive, but yeah, I think that's what they were," said Kimberly. "Like I said, I've never seen anything like them. I'll tell you all about it when we get back."

Tommy, who along with Jason had just arrived near an area of Tokyo Bay that appeared quite like the section of Angel Grove Lake that the Dragonzord had emerged from, looked up just in time to see Kimberly's Firebird Zord flying over them, heading back towards the Tokyo Towers. Rolling his eyes, Tommy turned the Tigerzord around and followed after her, Jason doing the same overhead as he questioned, "What the hell just happened? Why are we going back?"

"I have no idea, bro," answered Tommy, shaking his head as he proceeded to tell Jason the important parts of what Hayley and Kimberly had already told himself. He left out the part about the Zords, though, not wanting to be questioned on things that he did not have answers to.

Some five minutes later they were back atop the same building they had arrived on, their Zords en route to the docking station as Jason and Tommy walked across the roof to where Kimberly stood with her backs to them. An invisiportal retrieved them shortly thereafter, and soon they were back in Tommy's basement.

"Power down!" they yelled in unison, bright flashes of pink, red, and white appearing and then dissipating just as quickly, leaving them in the clothes they had been wearing prior to morphing.

"Hayley, I need you to hack into any security cameras that might have seen these aircrafts," said Tommy at once. Slowly turning around to face Kimberly, he went on, "I need to know exactly what you saw out there, Kim."

Sighing, Kimberly nodded her head. "I — like I said, I'm not really sure what they were exactly. One looked like a big red bird of some kind, maybe an eagle or a hawk. Then there was a gold bird that had helicopter propellers. I — I know it sounds crazy, but I think it was a chicken."

"A chicken?" questioned Jason obliviously.

Kimberly shrugged. "I honestly don't know what else it could have been, so yeah. The last one was more of a plane, with this big long nose. It was gray, maybe silver, and it kind of looked like a cat of some kind. I honestly don't see how they could have been anything but Zords. They had these lasers and missiles, and it took them all of about twenty seconds to wipe out every single Alpha Cruiser in the fleet, at which point they took off without saying anything."

"I think she's right, Tommy," Hayley interjected before anyone else could say anything. "Come and take a look at this."

Furrowing his brow, Tommy walked over to a spot directly behind Hayley's chair. She was pointing at one of the dozen or so screens surrounding her, Tommy peering over the chair to see the image in question. It was black and white, definitely from a building's security camera, and while the aircrafts were small, there was simply no denying that these were neither commercial nor military.

"Two birds and a flying cat. Two birds and a flying cat," muttered Tommy to himself repeatedly, trying to think if there had been any other teams with those particular Zords. None, however, came to mind.

"You know what this means, don't you?" said Hayley, craning her neck back to look up at him.

"Yeah," supplied Jason from behind, shaking his head, "It means there are at least three more active Rangers on Earth that we don't know about."

"Bingo," said Hayley. Returning her attention to Tommy, she added, "It might take me awhile, but eventually I'll be able to pinpoint their energy signatures and open an invisiportal that takes you to them."

"No," said Tommy with a shake of his head. "There's a reason they didn't reveal themselves to Kimberly earlier. Some teams have secret identities, others are known to the public; as Rangers, we have to respect the differences amongst the various teams. If they want us to know who they are, they'll tell us. Otherwise, leave them be."

No sooner had those words escaped his lips, however, than the alarms began to wail once more. Rolling his eyes exaggeratedly, Tommy threw his hands above his head in disgust and said, "What is it now?"

As Hayley typed away to locate the source of the disturbance, Jason and Kimberly approached the chair from behind, taking up spots on either side of Tommy. "Oh no," said Hayley hoarsely. "It's the Zanarians. There are at least ten of them in downtown San Francisco. They're taking out people left and right, Tommy."

"Ten of them?" said Tommy in disbelief. Had these soldiers been Putties or Tengas or Tyrannodrones, ten would have been no problem. Hell, he could have taken on ten by himself. But these were Zanarians, man and woman alike raised from infancy to be cold, heartless warriors.

The creatures themselves did not look menacing, tall and thin with gangly arms and legs, but appearances were certainly deceiving in this case. When armed, the Zanarians typically carried what looked like a double-edged, dual-sided scythe, which they swung with expert precision and which could also be charged with the same electrical current that coursed throughout their bodies. To make things more complicated, they were impossibly fast, able to move in ways that no human could ever hope to mimic. It was like watching the Matrix, only with seven-foot tall creatures with black eyes, elongated noses, jagged teeth, and whose skin was a horrible shade of pale yellow.

"Tommy, we need to move," said Jason firmly.

"I know," said Tommy, nodding. "Hayley, get the others over there as soon as possible. We're heading out."

Moments later, they were morphing as they traveled through another invisiportal, this one dropping them off just fifty or so yards away from where the Zanarians were, quickly moving up Market Street while systematically slicing away anyone and everyone who got in their way. Tommy was just about to lead Jason and Kimberly in charging the creatures when another invisiportal opened above them, this one dropping Adam, Billy, and Aisha, fully morphed, beside their teammates.

"Nice of you guys to drop in," said Tommy, taking up a defensive stance as he slowly drew Saba from its sheath.

"Any time," replied Adam, thrusting his hand to his side as his Power Axe suddenly appeared.

At this point, the four remaining Rangers summoned their own weapons. Leaving Kimberly back to take up a sniping position with her Power Bow, Tommy led the remaining four Rangers towards the Zanarians as panicking humans scattered all around them, desperately trying to escape from their assailants.

Aiming her bow, Kimberly watched as Tommy, Adam, and Jason each engaged two of the Zanarians, deflecting and returning blow after blow only to have theirs deflected as well. With Billy and Aisha only able to handle one Zanarian at a time, though, two were left walking the streets, now destroying automobiles since most of the people in the area who were not already dead had taken to a much safer distance in order to watch the action.

Racing to the other side of the street, Kimberly hastily climbed onto the luggage rack of a nearby SUV, giving her a much better look at the two remaining Zanarians as she re-aimed her bow. Still unaware of her presence, the Zanarians continued marching up the street in ignorance until the one in front was suddenly dropped to the ground, an arrow glowing with pink energy lodged into its forehead. Unfortunately, this also immediately alerted the other Zanarian to Kimberly and the SUV she was standing on.

With one step forward, the Zanarian thrust its scythe towards the ground, using it as something of a vaulting pole to lift it over a nearby car and into the street. Holding onto the weapon as it flipped through the air, the Zanarian landed with grace and began sprinting towards Kimberly, effortlessly dodging one, two, three, four more arrows flying at it in rapid succession.

Trying not to panic as the Zanarian grew closer and closer, Kimberly drew another arrow and then took a few steps back. Her foot slipped on the final step, however, causing her to fall backwards towards the sidewalk with her arrow flying off wildly just as the Zanarian had sprung forward to attack.

This turned out to be a good thing, though, because as the Zanarian flew over the car with its scythe drawn back high above its head, Kimberly had just enough time to draw her Blade Blaster from its holster at her hip and fire four quick shots into the Zanarian's face and chest. While the Blade Blaster wasn't powerful enough to destroy a Zanarian — at least not with just four shots — it was more than enough to seriously injure the creature and give Kimberly the brief window that she needed to regain her footing.

With the Zanarian lying face down on the concrete, Kimberly turned around to see that the other Rangers were still dealing with all eight of the remaining creatures; not very good progress at all. Then again, she had had the benefit of taking a clear shot at an oblivious Zanarian, something that the others had not been so fortunate to have. Not to mention the fact that killing a Zanarian in close combat was damn near impossible.

From behind, she could hear the injured Zanarian start to move, causing her to whip around and watch intently as it struggled back to its feet, smoke pouring from the four large burn wounds on its face and chest. Deciding to end this particular fight before the Zanarian could recover fully, Kimberly hastily retrieved her bow and — standing no more than ten feet away — drew an arrow that ripped through the creature's body completely, the tip and several inches of the shaft sticking out of its back.

Clutching the shaft of the arrow in disbelief, the Zanarian looked down at it momentarily and then back up at Kimberly with a twisted expression, only to find itself the victim of another glowing arrow, this one ripping through its right eye and out the back of its head. Kimberly did not even bother to watch the creature collapse and die; instead, she quickly whirled around and rushed off to aid her teammates.

She had only made it about halfway to them, however, when her path was suddenly blocked by several people standing with their backs to her, having appeared seemingly from out of nowhere. Freezing on the spot, she looked amongst them and saw that they were wearing uniforms and helmets: red, blue, yellow, black, green, gold, and silver…these weren't just normal people, these were Rangers.

"Holy shit," she murmured to herself, watching as the red one drew a long sword and began racing towards the fight with his teammates following closely behind him. Well, all but one of them, that is.

"You know, guys, those things look pretty tough!" the Green Ranger shouted to his teammates. "I think I'll just hang back here and —"

"C'mon!" said Kimberly, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him along as she ran to join the other eleven Rangers.

"Whoa, a Pink Ranger," he said in surprise. "That's kind of hot."

But Kimberly wasn't listening. Her attention was focused solely on Tommy, who was currently trying to parry multiple Zanarian attacks with Saba. He must have thought that there was another Zanarian at his back, because as he deflected one attack, landing a kick to the stomach of the Zanarian he was facing that left it staggering, he quickly spun around in the midst of swinging Saba for a killing blow.

"Tommy, no!" yelled Kimberly as she ran, for the presence that he had sensed behind him was not another Zanarian, but that of this new Gold Ranger.

Somehow, Tommy heard her scream and was able to stop Saba's blade just inches from the back of the Ranger's neck. Beneath his helmet, his expression was one of complete shock, staring at the Gold Ranger as he used what looked like a small dagger to battle a Zanarian, oblivious to the fact that he had almost been severely injured, if not killed, by a fellow Ranger.

Slowly, as he lowered Saba, Tommy began to take in the scene. Aside from the gold one, four other Rangers that he had never seen before had popped up all around him and had taken to helping his teammates. Aisha and another Yellow Ranger were fighting side-by-side, same with Billy and another Blue Ranger, and Adam and another Black Ranger. On the other side of the melee, Jason and the new Red Ranger were back-to-back, each brandishing their respective swords as they dealt with a pair of Zanarians.

It seemed fairly clear whose side these new Rangers were on, and as such, his teammates had obviously decided on their own that now was not the time to be asking questions. Unfortunately for Tommy, the time he had spent looking around was more than enough for the Zanarian he had been fighting to recover.

The sound of the scythe cutting through the air caused Tommy to whip around just in time to see the Zanarian descending on him from above. Then, a blur of pink was flying in on the left, with one of silver on the right. Both of them collided with the Zanarian in midair, connecting with kicks to their respective side of the creature's head, resounding in a thunderous crunch as the Zanarian's skull fractured.

As Kimberly and the Silver Ranger landed on opposite sides of the Zanarian they locked eyes beneath their helmets, seemingly sizing each other up while remaining in defensive stances. Breathing a sigh of relief that his head was still attached to his neck, Tommy quickly looked to the Silver Ranger; colors like gold and silver were typically reserved for additional Rangers who joined the team after the core group had already been established. Those extra Rangers were, to the best of his knowledge, exclusively male, yet this Silver Ranger was wearing a skirt.

Now, Tommy was far from a sexist person, but he also knew that his fighting prowess was unrivaled by anyone he had ever led or served with not named Jason, and the notion that his life had just been saved by not one, but _two_ women left him grinning as he watched Kimberly and the Silver Ranger relax their positions slightly.

"Nice kick," they said in unison.

"Yeah, thanks," they added together.

In the middle of a fight, both were suddenly laughing, apparently due to having twice said the same exact thing. While certainly amusing on some level, Tommy could not believe that they had chosen this, of all times, to express that amusement. Rolling his eyes, he said, "Hey, I appreciate you guys saving me, but can we save the pleasantries until after this is over?"

As both women turned to the side to face him, Kimberly said, "Look around. It _is _over."

She was right. Every single Zanarian was on the ground. Some were burned and smoldering, having obviously been hit by some kind of high-powered blaster, while others were pouring their yellowish-green blood from a myriad of stab wounds. One had even been beheaded, by the Green Ranger, from the looks of it, who was holding a large axe over his shoulder and yelling at his counterpart in black while pointing back and forth from himself to the headless Zanarian that he was standing over.

For a few moments, the Rangers of old and new allowed themselves to celebrate their victory, slapping or shaking hands while congratulating everyone on the fact that they were all still standing. But then realization set in, at least for Tommy and his teammates. None of them had any idea who these Rangers were or how they had gotten there.

Almost at once, the excitement died down as everyone began looking around at each other, apparently unsure what their next move should be. Letting out a quiet sigh, Tommy looked around until he had found the Red Ranger and then started towards him, sheathing Saba along the way.

"I assume you're the leader?" said Tommy, once he was closer. The Red Ranger gave no verbal reply, though, merely nodding his head in confirmation. "Right, well…," added Tommy, coming to a stop and extending his hand, "Thanks."

Nodding again, the Red Ranger took Tommy's hand and shook it, both of them squeezing a bit harder than they normally would have. It was, without a question, a reinforcement of their dominant positions on their respective teams, each leader trying to see what the other one was made of.

Moments later, however, the handshake broke, at which point the Red Ranger spoke for the first time. Briefly pausing to look around at his teammates, the Red Ranger turned back around to face Tommy and then uttered two very simple words.

"Follow me."


	3. Understanding

_**Title: War**_

_**Chapter Three — "Understanding"**_

_**Original Posting Date: July 5 , 2010**_

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With the wailing sound of both police and ambulance sirens rapidly drawing nearer, Tommy quickly signaled for his teammates to join him as the new Red Ranger did the same with his. Civilians abound with curiosity were creeping closer and closer to where most of the action had just taken place, causing the Red Ranger to look at Tommy and say, "We need to get out of here now, before anyone here can get a good look at us."

"What do you mean?" asked Tommy, his expression confused beneath his helmet. "You're wearing a helmet. No one can see you."

"That doesn't matter," the Red Ranger replied. "We'll explain everything later. For now, you and your team need to follow us."

Tommy was not typically one for taking orders, but he also wanted desperately to know more about this new team. He had spent his entire life working with different Ranger teams, documenting their history as a way to carry on the legacy that Zordon had started; the fact that there was a team he had never seen or heard of before made his mind up for him.

"Let's go," he said simply, motioning for the Red Ranger to lead the way.

With that, the Red Ranger merely nodded and took off running with his teammates right on his heels, though the one in green was clearly struggling to keep pace with the others. For his part, Tommy did not even bother to explain to his teammates what was going on, mostly because he didn't really know himself. Instead, he simply ran off after the new team while trusting that his would follow.

They did, of course, but by the time they had come to a stop three blocks later in a darkened alley, all of them were attacking Tommy at once with questions as to what was happening. Unable to answer them, Tommy held up his hands and tried his hardest to remain patient as he said, "Listen, I don't know what's going on any more than the rest of you. He —" Tommy went on, pointing at the Red Ranger, "— told me to follow him, so I did."

"What?" blurted Kimberly. "But…it could be a trap!"

Unbeknownst to Kimberly, nearly all twelve sets of eyeballs rolled simultaneously at her comment which, considering recent events, was really quite silly. Turning to face her, Tommy opened his mouth to reply, but the Red Ranger was already speaking before Tommy could say anything.

"We just destroyed about a dozen Zanarians," he said with a hint of irritation in his voice. "If that's not proof enough for you, then I don't know what else we can do."

This time it was only Kimberly who rolled her eyes. "Eight, actually," she countered.

"What?" said the Red Ranger blankly.

"There were only eight of them, not a dozen," she answered. "Well, originally there were ten — _I took out two of them by myself_ — but that's neither here nor there. What's really important is who you are and what you're doing here."

The green one immediately stepped forward with his hand up. "I'm Zi —"

"Can it, Green," said the Black Ranger, grabbing Green's arm and pulling him back.

Staring at the Green Ranger for a few moments, the Red Ranger shook his head and then returned his focus to Kimberly. "Look," he started, "I know you all have questions. If you'll follow us just a little further, I promise you that we can answer some of them."

"Some?" questioned Adam.

"Yes, some," said the Red Ranger, nodding. "There are some things we just can't tell you, but you'll have to live with that if you want our help.

"Who said anything about needing your help?" barked Jason, taking a couple of bold steps toward the other Red Ranger. "We don't _need_ you. We can handle this fine by ourselves."

"Really?" the Blue Ranger spoke up, "Because that's not what it looked like when we got here. In fact, it looked like you were getting your butts handed to you on a silver platter."

The first thing Tommy and his Rangers noticed about the Blue Ranger was his heavy Scottish accent, but now was not the time to pursue such trivialities. After that last comment, most of the team didn't care where he was from. All at once, everyone but Tommy started yelling angrily at the Blue Ranger, no one able to understand what any one person was actually saying.

"Shut up!" yelled Tommy, after a mere five seconds. Immediately, his team was silent. "He's right," he went on, shaking his head, "Today wasn't the first time it's happened either. We need help and there's no way around that. Now, I'm the leader of this team, and I say to shut up and do what they say, alright?"

"And what if we don't?" asked Kimberly, hands on her hip defiantly.

Though she could not see his eyes, she could most certainly feel the icy glare coming through his visor as he muttered, "Then I disconnect your Morpher from the grid when I get home."

Caught off guard by the severity of his answer, Kimberly could barely choke out her reply of, "Oh; alright then."

That pretty much settled matters. Again, Tommy motioned for the Red Ranger to lead the way, but this time the Red Ranger shook his head and said, "We can't go out there like this. That's why we came here, so we could de-morph without being seen."

"Well then why are we still in uniform?" asked Tommy.

"Because _your_ team wanted to play Twenty Questions," said the Red Ranger matter-of-factly.

Though Tommy could not help the broad grin that came over him, he could quickly tell from the bodily reactions of his teammates that they were not pleased with the way that they were being talked about. Now was not the time to worry about that, though.

Seconds later, seven bursts of multicolored light flooded the alley. The new team had de-morphed, although the shadows from the buildings on either side of the alley still left them mostly shrouded in darkness.

"Guess that means it's our turn, huh?" said Tommy, speaking to the place where the Red Ranger had been standing.

"Guess so," he replied simply.

"No need to yell it, team," muttered Tommy.

Shortly thereafter came six simultaneous murmurs of, "Power down," followed by another outpouring of vibrantly colored energy.

"Now what?" asked Tommy.

"Now we move," said the Red Ranger, "Two at a time; one from my team, one from yours. I'll call one, then you call one. I'll go out last since we have an extra Ranger."

"Fine," said Tommy, nodding his agreement.

"Flynn," the Red Ranger called out.

Moments later, Tommy caught the faintest glimpse of a blue tee shirt moving towards him through the darkness, leading him to call for Billy. Tommy watched as Billy and Flynn made their way to the end of the alley, turned left, and disappeared.

The Red Ranger then waited nearly two full minutes before announcing, "Ziggy."

"Adam," said Tommy.

Following the same pattern as before, the Red Ranger waited another two minutes and then called for Summer, Tommy sending Kimberly. Gem and Jason went next, followed two minutes later by Gemma and Aisha.

"That's five," said Tommy quietly, to the Red Ranger. "Aside from you, that just leaves me and —"

"Me," came a deep, obviously male voice from even deeper in the alley.

Tommy immediately looked that way, but that was where the shadows were at their thickest, making it impossible to see any portion of the man for several more seconds. "And you are?" questioned Tommy.

"Dillon," he answered, finally emerging out of the shadows enough for Tommy to see his face. "Follow me," he added, without bothering to ask Tommy's name.

At first, Tommy did not give a second thought to the man's appearance; it was far too dark to make any judgments. But as they made their way out of the alley and into the light of day, Tommy quickly found himself doing multiple takes at the young man on his left. For a moment, he actually thought he was looking at a younger version of himself, but that idea was quickly put to rest.

Truthfully, Dillon didn't look much like Tommy at all. Their facial features were completely different, especially with the scar on Dillon's forehead, but there were still some similarities between the pair that Tommy could not help noticing. Both were of similar height and build; both had the same shade of dark, naturally curly brown hair; they even walked the same way, looking left and right every few seconds in search of potential danger, their bodies incredibly loose just in case they found that danger and needed to fight.

But it was something else that truly caught Tommy's attention as they moved through a crowded Powell Street in silence, something that left him with an industrial-sized lump in his throat. He couldn't be sure without seeing them together, but when he saw Dillon's eyes, their shape and doe brown color made his mind go straight to Kimberly.

"Something wrong?" asked Dillon, raising an eyebrow. His peripheral vision had alerted him to the frequent looks Tommy was sending his way, and while they didn't seem threatening, he could not understand why the man on his right kept looking at him.

Stirred from his thoughts, Tommy hastily shook his head and said, "No. No, you just — you look familiar to me. Have I seen you somewhere before?"

Dillon suppressed the urge to laugh heartily, substituting it instead with a quiet chuckle and shake of his head. "That's pretty unlikely," he answered. Narrowing his eyes, Tommy maintained his gaze on Dillon for a few more moments, but did not reply, merely nodding and then looking away. He wanted to get back to his thoughts, but Dillon seemed to have other plans. "So, are you gonna tell me your name or what?" he questioned.

Looking back at Dillon, Tommy apologized and then introduced himself. "Black, huh?" he went on, receiving a nod from Dillon after deciding that he, Tommy, could at least try and offer some conversation since Dillon had made the effort to start it. "I was black once."

"But you're white now?" asked Dillon curiously, noting the color of the tee shirt that Tommy was wearing.

"White _again_," Tommy replied, chuckling at the confused look on Dillon's face. "I've been doing this for a long time, man. I was fifteen and green when I started, eighteen and red when I retired, with a stint in white in between. Then I had to come back and help a new team a few years later, and that's when I went black. I thought that was going to be my last go-around doing this, but here I am, still playing superhero at thirty-one years old," he added with a laugh.

Dillon could not help but to laugh along with Tommy. "I don't know if I could do that, man," he said, shaking his head. "I was only active for about a year before we had to give up our powers, and then —"

But Dillon did not finish his statement, quickly snapping his mouth shut and looking away. "And then what?" Tommy pressed on.

Dillon did not look back right away, but when he did, he let out a sigh and said, "Sorry, but that's not really a question I can answer; maybe Scott can, though."

"Scott?" said Tommy. "Is that your Red?"

Letting go another chuckle, Dillon nodded and said, "Yep; and judging by those couple of minutes in the alley, yours and ours should get along famously."

"Let me guess," Tommy began, "Alpha male, firm in his convictions, hot headed, sometimes temperamental, overly protective, but with the best of intentions at heart?"

"Yeah, that definitely sounds like Scott," said Dillon. "Are they all like that?"

"Who, Reds?" questioned Tommy, Dillon nodding. Smirking, Tommy shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yeah, for the most part. For some reason, the leadership position just has a way of attracting those types of people. I mean, we all have our differences that set us apart from each other, but we have a lot of similarities as well."

"Yeah," said Dillon, drifting off as they turned a corner. "That's it right there," he said a few moments later, pointing across the street at a spacious parking lot surrounded by a twelve-foot high chain link fence.

"You drove here?" asked Tommy, sounding somewhere in between surprised and confused.

Again, Dillon laughed. "Yeah, something like that," he said.

Figuring that this was another question to ask Scott, Tommy came to a stop next to Dillon at the edge of the crosswalk, standing amongst a group of twenty or so people all waiting to cross the street. Neither man spoke as they waited, nor did they say another word to each other as they walked across the street, to the parking lot, and around three rows of cars before finding the ten other Rangers all standing around a pair of large, white SUV's at the end of the fourth row.

To Tommy's surprise, they all appeared to be getting along reasonably well with each other. No one was yelling or in anyone else's face, at least, which he determined had to be a good sign.

As soon as Kimberly noticed them she left the group, taking off at a jog towards the pair. Giving Tommy a discreet elbow nudge, Dillon wore a broad grin as he looked at the older man and said, "That your girlfriend?"

"Fiancée, technically, but I didn't tell you that. The rest of my team doesn't even know yet," said Tommy. Over Kimberly's shoulder, he noticed a young blond woman in jeans, a yellow tee shirt, and black leather jacket following close behind. "That _your_ girlfriend?" he asked of Dillon with a grin of his own.

"What gave it away?" said Dillon dryly.

Tommy did not have time to answer, though, for Kimberly had just come to a stop in front of the pair, looking at Dillon only for a moment before turning to Tommy. Smiling brightly, she simply said, "Hey," and then proceeded to wrap her arms around his midsection.

It seemed like an odd greeting considering it had only been about ten minutes since they had last seen each other, but Tommy did not bother to question it. "Hey," he replied, smiling as well as he gave her a quick kiss and then tucked her in at his side with his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist.

The blond woman arrived just moments later, exchanging a similar greeting with Dillon before the four made to introduce themselves. Tommy had barely shaken hands with the young woman — Summer Landsdown, as he learned — when someone else appeared alongside them. It was a young African-American man with a mound of curly dark brown hair that had been sun kissed into a lighter shade in some parts, dressed identically to Dillon and Summer aside from the color of his tee shirt, which was red. Tommy knew at once that this was Scott.

"We need to move," Scott said plainly, briefly looking amongst the four before walking off towards the group standing by the SUV's.

"Straight to the point, isn't he?" said Kimberly, grinning at Summer.

"Always," she replied with a laugh, shaking her head. "He can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but we still love him."

"He's not the only one," said Kimberly, smirking up at Tommy with a wink.

Rolling his eyes, yet smiling despite himself, Tommy could tell at once that Kimberly and Summer had not remained silent on their walk to the parking lot either. In fact, the lightness with which they looked at, and spoke to, one another made it seem as though they had been friends for several years.

"Oh, believe me, I know," said Summer, giving a similar look to Dillon, who reacted nearly identically to Tommy. She then returned her attention to Kimberly and added, "Scott's right though; we really should get a move on. Being out in the open like this isn't necessarily the best thing for us."

While that last part did not make a whole lot of sense to either Tommy or Kimberly, neither was inclined to argue or question. Instead, they started back towards the group and were there less than a minute later.

"Okay, let's make this quick," said Scott, who was standing a couple of feet away from the rest of the group. "I'm Scott; this is Flynn, Summer, Dillon, Ziggy, Gem, and Gemma," he went on, pointing to each person individually as they nodded or held a hand up.

Taking his cues from Scott, Tommy proceeded to introduce himself and then went through the rest of his team in a similar fashion.

"Good," continued Scott, nodding. "Now that that's out of the way, we can get out of here. Tommy, we're going to need two of your Rangers to drive," he went on, motioning towards the pair of SUV's.

Though she was really trying not to question anything for the time being — and only because Tommy had asked her to — Scott's statement had surprised Kimberly enough to force her into a furrowed brow as she asked, "Why?"

"Yeah, mate," supplied Flynn, "Why do they have to drive? They're our cars."

Scott squeezed his eyes shut in clear frustration for a moment before looking to Flynn and saying, "You know why. If one of us gets pulled over for some reason, we're all screwed."

"What?" interjected Adam. "Are you criminals or something?"

Scott full on rolled his eyes this time. "No, we're not criminals," he answered, his frustration now in his voice as well. "If everyone would just stop asking questions for right now, we'd probably already be in a place where I could explain everything. I can't do that when we're standing out in the open, though." Wearing a desperate expression, Scott then looked to Tommy, who seemed to be the only person willing to listen to him, and said, "Can we _please_ get going?"

Now that they were standing in the light, Tommy could tell just from looking at Scott how serious he was. Nodding once, Tommy looked around at his teammates for a moment and then brought his attention back to Scott, "I'll take one and Billy can take the other one."

"Fine," said Scott, nodding as well. Reaching into his left jacket pocket, he pulled out two keys and then handed one of them over to Billy and Tommy respectively. "We'll go seven in one and six in the other."

With that, the Rangers all dispersed in two separate groups. It was not even a question that Kimberly and Jason would ride with Tommy and, having already struck up quick friendships with Tommy and Kimberly, Dillon and Summer decided to join them as well.

As they walked to the SUV, Summer came up alongside Kimberly and quietly said, "I know you probably want to sit up front with Tommy, but these aren't…_normal _cars. Either Dillon or I need to ride shotgun so that someone can work the computer systems."

"Let Dillon do it," said Kimberly with a grin, adding, "That way us girls can sit in the back and chat some more."

Summer just smiled and nodded her agreement.

At the other SUV, though, things were not so easy-going. Scott had assumed the front passenger seat next to Billy, and Adam, Aisha, and Ziggy had taken the middle row, both without any issues. But then Flynn climbed into one of the two back seats, completely unaware that Gemma was right behind him, and that they had, in turn, left no open seat for Gem.

Flynn was already in his seat and buckled up by the time he realized that Gem was standing right outside the open door, looking back and forth between his sister and Flynn as though he was a child who did not understand what he was supposed to do. Understanding exactly what was happening, however, Flynn, who had always been more of a peace maker than an instigator, immediately made to unbuckle his seatbelt only to have his hand stopped mid-reach by Gemma's.

For the briefest of moments, the pair looked at each other in surprise, but Gemma quickly averted her gaze, moving it to her brother as she said, "It's only a few minutes, Gem."

"But —" Gem began, only to fall silent when Gemma gave him a look he had truly never seen before, one that very plainly told him that she wanted to stay with Flynn.

Much to Flynn's surprise, Gem actually turned and walked away, albeit with a rather dejected expression on his face. Flynn certainly didn't like seeing one of his teammates hurt, but he also did not want to pass up on a rare opportunity to be somewhat alone with Gemma, especially not after she had made the effort to keep it that way.

And while Gemma appeared a bit sad at the way she had sent her brother off and his reaction to it, she quickly found herself smiling sheepishly when, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Flynn watching her with a grin. Apparently, being away from her brother had awoken something in Gemma because, while Billy began backing the SUV out of the parking spot at Scott's instruction, she slowly turned to face Flynn, maintaining her smile as her hand moved to cover his, which had been resting atop his knee.

In the other SUV, Dillon and Summer were the only ones who could understand why Gem looked so sad. No one could really say anything, however, since Dillon was giving Tommy directions through San Francisco while simultaneously pulling and twisting an assortment of knobs that would have controlled things like the radio and air conditioning in a normal car. In this car, however, they just seemed to make a lot of random noises; at least to Jason, Tommy, and Kimberly anyway.

"Is there anywhere near where you live that's hidden from the public's view?" said Dillon. They had been driving for nearly twenty minutes and were now on a two-lane road that was all but deserted, only the occasional car passing by on the opposite side.

"Yeah, my house is in the middle of the woods. No one goes out there unless they're visiting me," replied Tommy, "Why?"

Dillon did not answer Tommy's question, though, instead asking another of his own. "What's your address?"

"Why?" repeated Tommy, this time a bit firmer.

"You'll see in a few minutes," answered Dillon. Tommy's expression, however, was one that said he needed a better answer than what he had just been given. If he had been Scott, Dillon might have become frustrated, but Dillon knew more than anyone what it felt like to want answers. Letting out a sigh, he said, "Look, I really don't even understand this myself. It's still confusing as hell to me, and that's an honest answer. Scott can explain everything a whole lot better than I can, so please just go along with me on this one."

Gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter, Tommy eventually let out a deep breath and muttered, "1992 Valencia Road, Reefside, California."

"Thank you," said Dillon, who then went back to the various knobs.

"Wow, 'please' and 'thank you?'" Summer piped up from the back seat with a laugh. "What's gotten into you, Dillon?"

Dillon just rolled his eyes and shook his head, not even bothering to look back or reply. He did, however, share an understanding grin with Tommy, the latter of whom quickly found himself staring curiously at what looked like the face of the in-dash CD player, which was now showing a scrolling display of his address.

Thinking it was just a GPS system — which he definitely did not need — Tommy remained silent, but Dillon did not. Pulling back the left sleeve of his jacket to reveal a Morpher strapped around his wrist, Dillon pressed a button on the device, brought it to his lips, and repeated Tommy's address.

"_Copy that,"_ came Scott's voice via the Morpher a few moments later.

With that, Dillon looked to Tommy and then back at the other Rangers behind him as he said, "Hang on, guys."

Tommy started to say something, but before he could get anything out, Dillon had already pressed in one of the knobs on the in-dash console. Suddenly, there was a flash of blinding white light, followed by a sensation that Tommy imagined would feel quite like getting sucked through a vacuum hose. It was easily one of the oddest and most uncomfortable feelings that he had ever experienced, but thankfully it only lasted a few short seconds.

Then the light dissipated, leaving Tommy blinking the spots away from his eyes until he could see clearly, at which point he came to the realization that they were parked right at the edge of his driveway.

"Holy shit," breathed Jason, apparently unable to say anything more.

"What the hell just happened to us?" Kimberly blurted out.

Letting out a small laugh, Summer said, "I take it you guys have never teleported before?"

"Oh, we've teleported plenty of times," replied Kimberly, shaking her head, "But it's never felt anything like that before. My body feels like it was just pressed through a tube half my size."

Dillon and Summer merely laughed, while Gem seemed to force a brief smile before opening the door to his right and climbing out. With Gem having made the first move, it was only a matter of moments before everyone else had piled out as well, the same happening with the other SUV too.

As Gemma got out behind Flynn, she and Gem locked eyes. Gemma smiled brightly and waved him over, but Gem simply shook his head and walked away with the rest of the Rangers he had ridden with, who were now heading up Tommy's driveway towards the front door. Gemma looked crushed.

Upon unlocking and opening the door, Tommy was not surprised at all to find Hayley standing just beyond the entryway, hands on her hips as she stared at him with an expectant look. "What in the world happened to you guys?" she demanded, practically echoing Kimberly's sentiments. "One second your energy readings had you guys driving outside San Francisco, and then the next second you were here."

As everyone filed into the house behind him, Tommy started to answer, but Hayley had cut him off before he could get a word out. "Wait; who are they?" she questioned, looking from Tommy to the seven people she had never seen before.

"They're the ones who saved our asses," said Tommy simply.

Hayley looked confused for a few moments, but then realization seemed to dawn on her. "You mean —?" she trailed off.

Tommy merely nodded as the rest of his team sans Kimberly filed past him en route to the kitchen. He then proceeded to introduce Hayley to those she had not yet had the chance to meet.

"We should probably go to the living room," he said to Hayley, who nodded her agreement. Tommy then looked around at the new Rangers and said, "My team knows to make themselves at home when they're here. You guys should too. If you want anything to eat or drink, help yourselves."

Ziggy, who loved free food more than just about anything else on Earth, quickly took off after Tommy's teammates. Dillon followed a few moments later, after asking Summer if she wanted anything, and Flynn seemed poised to join them as well, but then he noticed the anticipatory expression that Gem was wearing, as if he was just waiting for Flynn to leave Gemma's side.

Deciding that he was not really _that_ thirsty after all, Flynn stood firm in his position, remaining next to Gemma the entire time as they waited for the others to rejoin them, and in the living room, he made sure that they ended up on the two-person love seat. In Flynn's eyes, he had been given the very opportunity that he had spent the last few years able to imagine only in his wildest of dreams, and there was simply no way in the world that he was going to let that opportunity slip through his fingers now.

When everyone had taken up seats — some had to resort to the arms of couches, or the floor — Tommy, who was in his recliner with Kimberly on his lap, looked to Scott, who was the only one standing up, and said, "Now can you explain to us what's going on here?"

"Yes," said Scott, nodding his head once before turning it to look at the other Rangers. Finally, his gaze ended up back on Tommy. "I know this is probably going to seem completely insane to you guys, but my teammates and I aren't from here. We — we aren't from this time. Where we come from, the year is 2144 and the Earth is still recovering from a near apocalypse caused by a rogue computer virus."

"Wait, what?" said Jason, who was seated on the ground next to Tommy's chair. "Run that by me one more time."

Scott sighed. However, it was not out of frustration this time. Rather, it was a matter of discomfort that he felt whenever he had to talk about the Venjix virus and how it had nearly decimated the entire planet. Still, he forced himself to go on. "We're from the future. In our time, almost all of Earth is destroyed by the virus. Everyone who could make it in time took sanctuary inside of Corinth, a city with a protective dome…the only city on the planet that wasn't completely wiped out of existence. I know it's hard to believe, but —"

"Which part?" interjected Kimberly, "The time-travel thing, or the part about the Earth being destroyed?"

Scott seemed to ponder that for a moment before saying, "All of it, I guess."

With something of a bitter laugh, Kimberly shook her head and said, "You might think time-travel is strange, but everyone here except Jason has done it at least once before; twice in my case."

"Yeah," added Aisha, nodding. "I think the whole world-being-destroyed thing is what really needs explaining."

Again, Scott sighed. "There's not really much that can be said about it. Our mentor, Dr. K, the one who created the Ranger powers…she was abducted by an underground government think-tank called Alphabet Soup when she was just a kid. She was one of those prodigy kids that you hear about, could do equations and stuff that mathematicians and scientists spend their entire lives trying to work out."

"I bet she's not as smart as Billy," Kimberly murmured into Tommy's ear, so that only he could hear her.

Tommy just grinned as Scott went on, "Anyway, this group ended up abducting her and made her work for them. She's never really told us what kind of things they made her do, but we do know a few things: one, she was abused mentally and emotionally by Alphabet Soup; two, they forced her to create the Ranger technology that we, the RPM Rangers, use; and three, she created the Venjix virus as a way to take down Alphabet Soup. Unfortunately, she was caught by two of the group's agents before she could —"

"Wait," Tommy interrupted. "Did you just say 'Venjix?'"

"Yeah, why?" asked Scott.

Tommy and Jason immediately locked eyes.

"The moon," Jason supplied in a low murmur.

Tommy nodded. "My teammates and I were Rangers when we were teenagers," he explained. "Aisha and Kimberly had already left the team by this point, but towards the end of our run, we had to fight off a group called the Machine Empire. A few years after that, another Ranger that came after us found out that one of their generals had survived and was attempting to resurrect the leaders of the empire. Jason, myself, and eight other Red Rangers went to the moon and were able to stop him, but…his name…it was Venjix."

"You think they were the same?" asked Scott.

Shrugging his shoulders, Tommy answered, "I don't know. Up until now I was positive that we had destroyed Venjix beyond repair. Billy, do you think it's possible that part of Venjix was able to survive?"

Billy nodded and said, "It's certainly a possibility. From what you and Jason have told me of Venjix, it sounds like he was a sentient robot capable of his own thoughts and actions. If part of his software survived, a person who knew what they were doing could definitely use that programming to create a virus."

"Whether it's possible or not is beside the point," said Scott, shaking his head. "The virus won't even be created until seventy or so years after all of you have passed away."

"But if we found that software now —" started Tommy, only to be cut off by Scott.

"You could severely alter the course of the future and make it so that my teammates and I never even existed in the first place," said Scott. "That's why it was so important that we got away from the public. We're not even supposed to be here — well, technically we are, but I don't even want to try and explain that; it's way too confusing. Anyway, we have strict instructions on what we're allowed to do and what we're not allowed to do when we're here. That's why we couldn't drive the cars ourselves; our licenses are all registered to a city that doesn't exist for well over a hundred more years. If one of us had gotten pulled over behind the wheel…even the slightest misstep could drastically change everything."

"But revealing yourselves to us won't?" questioned Kimberly.

Scott shrugged. "Dr. K said it would be okay, as long as you guys promised to never speak a word of this to anyone; that means family, friends, other Rangers you might know…no one else can have any idea who we are or where we came from."

The seriousness with which Scott spoke was palpable. As such, not a single question to the issue was raised by Tommy or his teammates. Instead, everyone either simply nodded their heads or murmured their confirmation that they would indeed remain silent. Even if their intentions were noble, no one wanted to do something that would have a negative impact on the future, especially not when it concerned the seven who had come from that time to save their lives.

"Thank you," said Scott, with genuine appreciation in his voice. "So, here's where we stand. My team and I have full access to our weapons and Zords. We have thirteen individual Zords and ten different Megazord configurations, not including our Ultrazord, so we have more than enough versatility in our arsenal to combat any attack the ARC might launch. There's one problem though."

"What's that?" asked Tommy.

"We only have a limited amount of time here before the wormhole that brought us to your time closes," said Scott. "If the wormhole closes while we're still here, we'll cease to exist and our future selves won't be able to stop the Venjix virus from wiping out mankind."

If anyone was considering not keeping their promise, that last statement firmly cemented in their minds just how catastrophic it could be if they were to do something that changed the future.

"So what is it that we need to do exactly?" questioned Adam, who was sitting in between Aisha and Billy on the couch.

"We need to go on the offensive," answered Scott, looking to Tommy once more before continuing, "Just trying to stop the ARC one fight at a time is never going to get you guys anywhere, especially not when they have technology and weaponry that's constantly being upgraded. What we need to do is stall them long enough to form a strong, well-organized plan of attack, at which point we rain hell on them with everything we've got."

Jason chuckled as he looked up at Tommy and said, "Yep, this one's definitely a Red."

Tommy smirked, nodding his agreement to Jason before turning Scott's way. "As far as Zords go, it doesn't sound like what we have compares to what you have, so I don't know how much help we can be. That being said, do you really think that you guys have enough firepower to do genuine damage to the ARC?"

"I'm sorry, Tommy, but I can't answer that question," said Scott, his expression sincerely apologetic. "Being from the future, we know what's _supposed_ to happen here, but fulfilling that is something entirely different. Like I said before, one misstep could change everything, and me telling you all what the future holds could do just that. What I can tell you, though, is that my team and I are going to give them everything we've got. In my heart, yes, I believe that will be enough, but I can't promise any of you that it actually will be."

Studying Scott's face for a few moments, as Tommy often did when trying to determine the truth in someone else's words, he eventually let out a small sigh and then nodded his head in concession. "So what do we do?" he asked.

"Right now, nothing," said Scott, leaving Tommy looking confused. "My team and I need to find a hotel or something first, and then we can worry about making a plan of attack."

"I've got a better idea," said Tommy, giving Kimberly's butt a small push to move her from his lap as he rose to his feet. Then, turning to his three teammates on the couch, he added, "Come with me."

Sharing bewildered expressions, Adam, Aisha, and Billy stood up and followed Tommy out of the living room, into the den adjacent to the front entrance. "Close the door behind you, please," murmured Tommy, who was standing with his back to them.

Adam, the last to enter, pushed the door shut and then said, "What's going on, Tommy?"

Slowly, Tommy turned around. "I don't think these guys should have to get a hotel, not after what they did for us…what they're willing _to_ _do_ for us."

"What are you suggesting?" questioned Billy.

Tommy shrugged his shoulders casually. "I don't know. I'd ask them all to stay here, but I only have one extra room. I know it's probably not the most convenient of options, but I guess what I was thinking was that, between the four of us, the least we could do is give them a place to stay that they don't have to pay for."

"That's it?" asked Aisha, laughing when Tommy nodded. With a shake of her head, she went on, "Boy, the way you pulled us out of the room all serious like that…I thought you were about to tell us something bad."

Smiling somewhat helplessly, Tommy shrugged again and said, "Would you guys be willing to do that?"

"Yeah, of course," said Adam with a chuckling nod. "I mean, I should probably ask Tanya first, but —"

"You tell Tanya that I said it was okay," interjected Aisha, looking at Adam while wearing the same don't-argue-with-me expression that she had been giving him since the third grade. "She still owes me for getting you guys back together."

Adam just smirked as Tommy said, "What about you Billy?"

"I don't mind," said Billy, shaking his head. "Trini converted one of the spare rooms into an office several years back, but the other one is furnished comfortably enough for one person."

Tommy nodded, his expression going suddenly solemn at the mention of Trini. Placing his hand on Billy's shoulder, he murmured, "How's she doing these days, buddy?"

Billy gave a half-hearted shrug and said, "It's hard. Not only is she watching her father die, but she's also watching her mother's heart break piece by piece. Between that and trying to cope with her own pain…I've honestly never seen her like this. She's always been the calm one, reminding everyone how important it is to stay positive, but now I have to be that person for her and I honestly don't know if I'm doing a good enough job. She's staying at her parents' house for now, so I don't get to see her that often, but every time I do, she looks like she's only gotten worse since the time before."

Taking Billy's hand, Aisha squeezed it tightly as she replied, "You can't be too hard on yourself, Billy. I was standing in your shoes a couple of years back, when Rocky's mom was diagnosed with A.L.S., and he reacted exactly like Trini is now. When you spend literally every day of your entire life being able to count on someone, and then suddenly you find out that that person is going to be gone soon…it messes with you. As her husband, you just have to commit yourself to being there for her, whenever she needs it. Trini is one of the strongest, bravest women I know; but even if she doesn't want to admit it right now, eventually she's going to realize that she can't deal with her pain by herself. When that time comes, she's really going to need you to be there for her."

"Yeah," murmured Billy distantly, subconsciously nodding his head. After a few seconds of silence, he appeared to shake his head clear and then said, "Anyway…like I was saying, I have one open room available."

The other three understood at once that Billy wanted to change the subject and so no one even considered trying to push the issue further. Always one of the quickest to come to the side of her friends, Aisha immediately added, "We have two rooms and one of them has twin beds, so we can take three."

"Why do you have twin beds?" asked Tommy with a laugh, "That sounds like something my grandparents would do."

"I know, right?" replied Aisha, laughing right along with Tommy as she rolled her eyes. "Rocky did it because his younger sister has a habit of showing up with a new boyfriend every time she comes to visit. Even though the beds are always pushed together in the morning, I guess Rocky gets some kind of crazy satisfaction out of knowing that he made it slightly more difficult for his sister to have sex."

That only served to make Tommy laugh harder; he and Rocky had known each other for over fifteen years now, and what Aisha had just described sounded exactly like the type of thing that Rocky would do. Aisha was thankful to find that Billy was laughing as well, though she was not surprised to find that Adam was merely grinning and shaking his head. He had witnessed Rocky's shenanigans since they were four years old; at this stage of their lives, some twenty-seven years later, Rocky had to do something extremely crazy to elicit a bigger reaction out of his best friend. Putting twin beds in the guest room hardly fit the bill.

"Alright, so that's one at Billy's, three at Aisha's, one at mine," said Tommy, simultaneously adding the numbers in his head, "So that leaves two more. Can you take two Adam?"

With a half-frown, Adam shook his head and said, "I only have one extra room. Tanya did the same thing to our third bedroom that Trini did, only it's a recording studio instead of an office."

Tommy seemed to think on that for a few moments before nodding his head. "Actually, that should be perfect. I get the feeling that Dillon and Summer will only need one bed between the two of them."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Adam, grinning, "I have to be honest, here; I don't think Tanya would be too happy sharing the house with a couple of horny kids in their early twenties."

"Dillon and Summer can stay here; I don't care," said Tommy, shrugging nonchalantly. "The rest can go wherever."

Everyone seemed to be in agreement with that, and so they soon headed back to the living room where they found their seats as empty as they had left them. As Tommy approached the recliner where Kimberly was seated, he gave her a grin and teasingly asked, "Am I sitting on your lap this time?"

With a playful scoff, Kimberly rolled her eyes and said, "As if." Pushing herself out of the chair, she waited until Tommy was seated before climbing back onto his lap, an arm draped loosely around his shoulders as one of his hands found its way to the side of her leg.

"So what was that all about?" questioned Jason, looking up at Tommy from the floor.

Moving his gaze amongst the new Rangers, Tommy's eyes finally stopped on Scott as he said, "The four of us talked and we decided that we want you to stay with us. None of us really see a point in you guys paying for a hotel when we each have an extra bedroom or two that we can let you use for free."

Scott, along with most of his teammates, seemed quite taken aback by this offer. "You're serious?" he asked.

"Yeah, man, of course," said Tommy, nodding. "I mean, it seems like it's the least that we can do, you know?"

"Well, on behalf of myself and my team, let me first just say that we appreciate the offer," Scott began, "But I think it would make more sense if we were all staying together, just in case of an attack or something."

"Under normal circumstances, I'd agree with you," said Tommy, "And at the end of the day, it's your guys' decision where you want to stay. But this enemy is different than Venjix. You said the city you were defending was the last one on Earth. That means you didn't have to worry about Venjix attacking another city, or state, or country, or continent. The point I'm trying to make is that it's extremely unlikely that you're going to be attacked here, in a small, suburban, Southern California town. The ARC doesn't bring the fight to us; they take it somewhere that matters, and they don't care whether we show up or not. If we do, then it's just a minor speed bump in their plans. So it really doesn't matter whether you stay together or not. As long as you stay within two hundred miles of this house, Hayley can open a portal to take you anywhere in the world."

"Um, question," said Ziggy, raising his hand from his seat on the floor, leaning against the coffee table. "What exactly happens if that portal takes you _more_ than two hundred miles away from this house? How do you get back?"

"The runoff energy from an invisiportal allows another one to be opened for retrieval up to twenty-four hours after the first one has been closed," interjected Hayley, who was seated on one of the couch arms. "I've been doing this for awhile now, and the closest it ever came to that was ten hours. However, in the event that we reached the twenty-four hour mark and you weren't back in time, there are other options: Zords, for example; or airplanes."

Tommy forced himself to suppress a chuckle at Hayley's sarcasm as he looked to Scott once more, this time wearing a broad grin as he said, "That sounded like a pretty good answer to me. What'd you think?"

Laughing, Scott looked around at his teammates and said, "You guys okay with that?"

Indeed, they were all quite okay with that.

"Alright then," said Tommy. "We have one room here, so I figured it would make sense to have Dillon and Summer stay here. I mean, obviously I don't know anything about your guys' relationship, but —"

"Thank you," Summer interrupted, smiling. "That works fine."

It was all that needed to be said, though Tommy could not help but notice Dillon whispering something in Summer's ear that made her grin blushingly. With a reasonably good idea as to what they were talking about, Tommy simply sat back and listened as Aisha looked around and said, "I have two rooms; one with a full bed, and one with twin beds."

Wanting to stay with at least one other female, and unaware that the older male Rangers were all married, Gemma quickly announced, "I'll take the full bed!"

"Flynn and I can take the twin beds," offered Ziggy, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just become one of Flynn's all-time favorite people.

"Aye," echoed the Scotsman casually, not wanting Gemma to know how excited he was about staying in the same house as her for the first time since the war against Venjix.

To his surprise, though, Gem did not seem to be upset that he would not be staying with Gemma. In fact, Gem looked completely uncaring to the whole scenario playing out around him. Flynn imagined that Gem wasn't nearly so neutral on the inside, but again, he truly felt like he finally had to think about himself and what he wanted for once.

Soon thereafter, it was decided that Scott would stay with Adam, which left Gem staying at Billy's house, though Gem barely even looked up to acknowledge the older Blue Ranger.

"Did you guys bring luggage and stuff like that?" Tommy asked of Scott a few minutes later.

"Yeah," said Scott, nodding. "It's all in the back of the cars."

"Alright," replied Tommy, nodding as well. "I hate to be rude, but Kim and I have some things we need to take care of in town and I don't know when we'll get another chance, so let's do this: Dillon and Summer can bring in their things first, then the rest of you can go with Adam, Billy, and Aisha, get settled in for a little bit, and then we can all meet back here in a few hours. That sound alright?"

Kimberly gave him a quizzical look that very plainly stated that she had no idea what it was exactly that they needed to do in town, but that did not matter. With everyone else in agreement, Dillon and Summer disappeared outside soon thereafter and came back a few minutes later, Dillon shouldering an oversized duffle bag on each arm as though they were not even there.

Yet another fine benefit to being a hybrid…

Tommy quickly showed Dillon and Summer to the guest room, and it was not long after they had dropped their bags off on top of the bed that the others decided to disperse. Once everyone had said their goodbyes and the doors were closed, Jason immediately turned around to look at his two best friends and said, "What are you guys going into town for?"

"Grocery shopping," said Tommy, hastily taking Kimberly's hand and pulling her along with him towards the bedroom.

"Wait, can I come?" Jason called out after them.

"Nope," answered Tommy, without even looking back, "No room in the Jeep; sorry, man."

Once they had turned the corner and were out of sight, Tommy slowed his pace down to something a bit more reasonable. "What was all that about?" asked Kimberly, looking up at him with a confused expression. "And what do we have to do in town?"

Tommy furrowed his brow at her as he pushed the door open to the master bedroom. "Am I the only one who remembers what we talked about last night?"

"What we talked about last night —?" started Kimberly, trailing off for a few moments. Then her eyes suddenly went wide. "Are we going to see about a marriage certificate?" she questioned in a near whisper.

"Do you still want to get married?" asked Tommy.

"Yes, of course I do," answered Kimberly, nodding her head vigorously as she squeezed Tommy's hand with every ounce of strength she could muster. "I just — with everything that's happened this morning, I guess it must have just slipped my mind."

Tommy smirked, placing a single kiss to her forehead. "You're starting to sound like me, you know," he said teasingly as he closed the door behind them.

Kimberly scoffed and rolled her eyes, leaning against him playfully as she replied, "Don't even go there, Tommy."


	4. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

_**Title: War**_

_**Chapter 4 — One Step Forward, Two Steps Back**_

_**Original Posting Date: September 6, 2010**_

Nearly an hour later, Tommy's black Jeep was moving through the streets of nearby Blue Bay Harbor, Kimberly riding in the passenger seat while reading directions on her iPhone from behind a pair of oversized _Dolce &_ _Gabbana_ sunglasses.

Jason had tried to pepper them with more questions as to where they were going on their way out of the house, but the pair had merely walked outside and kept going without stopping to answer a single one of his queries.

From the seat behind the wheel, Tommy's non-steering hand had remained interlocked with Kimberly's nearly the entire twenty minute drive to the county clerk's office. Every couple of minutes he would steal a quick look to his right and smile, his mind in a constant state of wonder at the process that they were about to begin.

In all honesty, he could hardly believe that marrying Kimberly — what had once merely been the stuff of his teenaged dreams — was going to become a reality in a matter of days or weeks or however long that it actually took to get a marriage certificate. He had no idea what the exact timeframe would ultimately be, only that it was going to be sooner rather than later, which was really all that he needed to know.

"Turn left up here at the light, Tommy," said Kimberly, gently running her thumb up and down the side of his hand. For his part, Tommy merely murmured his understanding and then merged over into the left turn lane, the Jeep coming to a stop behind three other cars waiting for the red light to become a green arrow. After a few moments of silence, Kimberly looked to him and quietly went on, "We're really doing this, aren't we?"

"Yeah," said Tommy, smiling and nodding, "We are."

Returning the smile, Kimberly laid her head against his arm and said, "I always dreamed this day would come, but for awhile there, I wasn't sure that it actually would. Two or three years ago, if someone had told me that you and I would get married, I would've laughed in their face."

"And now?" asked Tommy, wearing a teasing expression.

"Now it seems like it was always meant to be this way," she replied, nuzzling his arm as the light went green and the Jeep began rolling forward slowly.

"You think so?"

Kimberly shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe," she said softly. "Why else would we have gone through all those bad relationships, all that pain and heartbreak, only to end up right back where we started?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Tommy, nodding. "I've thought about that same thing dozens of times, and the only thing I came up with is that it doesn't really matter. Whether it was fate, or just pure coincidence, the only thing that truly matters is that we're together."

Kimberly smiled and gave his hand a firm squeeze, Tommy completely unaware that her eyes had begun to water slightly behind her sunglasses. Looking out the side window to hide her face, she announced, "It should be coming up here on the right pretty soon."

"Gotcha," murmured Tommy, looking up ahead for a sign of the building.

After another half-mile or so of driving in silence, Tommy found what he was looking for and quickly flipped his turn signal up. Less than a minute later and they were parked, Tommy in the midst of undoing his seatbelt when Kimberly finally spoke again.

"I honestly can't believe we're going to do this," she breathed, staring straight out the windshield at the two-story concrete building.

Tommy furrowed his brow. "Are you having second thoughts?" he asked quietly.

Instantly, Kimberly turned his way and shook her head. "No, not at all; I love you, Tommy," she said hastily, taking his face in her palm as she pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "I _want_ to marry you; more than I've ever wanted anything else. It just — it seems surreal to me that we're really doing it. When we were kids, you were the first boy who made me want to marry someone other than Tom Cruise or Joey Lawrence. I mean, how many people can say that they ended up marrying the first boy or girl they ever truly fell in love with?"

Tommy did not give an immediate reply; at least not verbally, anyway. Instead, he leaned across the Jeep's center console and gave Kimberly a kiss that contained practically every ounce of passion and emotion he could muster with a piece of hard plastic digging into his hip.

Finally, when their lips broke, he whispered, "The only two that matter."

"Good answer," a smiling Kimberly murmured breathlessly.

Winking, Tommy said, "Come on," and proceeded to climb out of the Jeep as Kimberly did the same. Meeting at the hood of the car, they grasped hands once more and then started towards the office building.

Once inside, they found themselves standing in a modest-sized atrium with several rows of chairs — most of which were empty — and one row of individual windows at the end of the room, of which only two were being attended to. Fortunately, aside from the two people currently being helped at the windows, there was only one person ahead of them, and it only took about ten minutes of waiting in line before it was their turn.

As it turned out, getting married wasn't nearly as complicated as either of them had thought it would be. When Tommy told the older woman named Myrtle sitting on the other side of the window that they wanted to apply for a marriage certificate, she practically gushed over them as she handed over the paperwork. All that was really needed from them was some personal information, their signatures and those of two witnesses — Aisha and Jason, they decided — and someone to solemnize the marriage.

Aside from filling out the paperwork, which Tommy reasoned would take no more than five or ten minutes, the only other thing that they needed to do was make an appointment to see a judge, whom Myrtle said they could hand the completed paperwork to in person on the day of the ceremony. Myrtle also explained that getting a judge could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, but with no access to the judge's schedules she could not, unfortunately, give them any additional information on how long it might take them specifically.

This was perfectly fine with Tommy and Kimberly though. Two days, two weeks…what did it really matter? For them, the only thing that was truly important was that they were indeed getting married; and sooner, rather than later.

Their trip to the county clerk's office was not, however, the last stop that Tommy had planned, although Kimberly did not know this. She was so excited when they left the place that it took her almost ten minutes of driving before she realized that they were not heading back the way that they had come.

"Where are we going?" asked Kimberly, curiosity evident in her tone.

"I'm hungry," said Tommy casually. "I don't usually come out this way and there's a cheesesteak place in the mall up here that has the best sandwich I've ever had outside of Philly."

"Oh, okay," said Kimberly agreeably, since truthfully she was quite hungry as well.

The prospect of lunch kept her mind occupied as they pulled into the mall parking lot, driving around for a few minutes until they found an open spot near Macy's. As they made their way towards the entrance, Tommy reached for Kimberly's hand; it seemed like they never walked anywhere together for more than a few seconds without their fingers interlocked.

Passing by row after row of products in Macy's en route to the escalator, Kimberly continuously pointed out garments and accessories that she wanted to buy, Tommy just smirking and shaking his head the entire time. He had the distinct feeling that Kimberly would not even be thinking about clothes in a few minutes.

Soon they were on the second story, and from there they made their way through the rest of the department store and out into the main area of the mall. This particular mall was arranged in a cross-shape, so that one of the four flagship stores sat at each end and each side, the other stores all running in between them on either side.

The food court was located in the very center of the top level, and that was the way they headed for most of their walk. They were still several stores away from the food court when Tommy got the reaction he had been anticipating. One of the very last stores before they reached the food court was Tiffany & Co., one of the most recognizable jewelers in the country, primarily for their high-quality diamonds.

Kimberly's entire presence appeared to perk up slightly when she saw the hanging sign, but as they grew closer to the store, the opposite seemed to happen, almost as if she was disappointed that she could not go inside and buy something.

Tommy, however, simply looked away to hide his smile, stopping suddenly once they were standing outside the door.

"You know, my mom's birthday is coming up in a few weeks," said Tommy conversationally. "Why don't we go inside and see if there's anything that looks like it would fit her?"

Kimberly nodded eagerly, if only so that she could try on a bracelet or necklace far beyond anything that she could reasonably afford.

Inside, almost the entire store was done up in a shiny dark hardwood: the walls, floor, counters, and the bases on all of the display cases were made up of the same exact cut.

Almost at once, a blonde salesman in his early twenties came to greet them and offer assistance, but Tommy politely declined the help, saying that they were just looking for now and would let him know if they needed anything.

With a firm plan of attack in his mind, Tommy took Kimberly's hand once more and began walking amongst the store, casually browsing the assortment of bracelets and brooches; earrings and necklaces; pendants and watches. Occasionally, Tommy would ask Kimberly's opinion of an item that he knew his mother would never wear, watching her carefully to gauge her reactions.

Some she was moderately fond of; some she loved; and others she downright hated, so that after some ten or so minutes of walking around Tommy felt like he had a pretty fair idea of what she liked and disliked.

He had just finished asking her about a necklace — one he could practically hear his mother calling gaudy, amongst other things — when Kimberly said, "I want to go back and look at something. You keep looking around for your mom, and I'll catch back up with you in a few minutes, okay?"

"Okay," said Tommy, smiling briefly before pecking a quick kiss to her lips.

For a few more minutes, Tommy continued to walk about the store, watching Kimberly discreetly as she moved from case to case. Eventually, she settled on one particular case that seemed to have captured her attention more so than the others, and that was where she stood for nearly ten minutes, until Tommy came up from behind and put his hands on her shoulders, looking down at the case to see what she had been admiring.

They were rings; just as he had been expecting.

"Find anything you like?" he asked, feigning obliviousness as he pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"Oh, you know," said Kimberly with a shrug, sounding almost defeated.

Tommy smirked to himself and said, "That's not really an answer, Beautiful. Do you see anything you like or not?"

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Tommy, I'm a woman at Tiffany's; I like pretty much everything here. But I can't —"

"Then pick something," he interrupted.

"What?" blurted Kimberly, spinning around to face him.

"I said, 'pick something,'" Tommy repeated, his grin growing bigger as Kimberly's eyes grew wider. "Look," he went on, taking one of her hands, "If we were getting married under normal circumstances, I would have bought you an engagement ring and made a big deal out of proposing to you and all that stuff. But we're not. So instead of buying you an engagement ring that you'd only wear for a couple of weeks at most, I want you to pick something else out that you like; a necklace, earrings, whatever."

"Tommy, I can't —" Kimberly began.

"Yes, you can," he said over the top of her. "I know what you're going to say; that I don't have to do this, that it's too expensive…blah, blah, blah. But I _want_ to do this for you, Beautiful. So if you don't pick out something that you like then I'm going to have to pick out something for you, and I think we both know how disastrous that could turn out to be."

The pair shared a laugh at that, Kimberly nodding her agreement. Moments later, she let out a sigh and said, "So what you're saying is that I can pick out anything I want in the entire store?"

"Anything except a wedding ring," answered Tommy with a nod of his own.

"Why not a wedding ring?"

"Because this is for our engagement, like I said," replied Tommy. "When it gets closer to the wedding, then we can pick out our rings together."

Smiling brightly, Kimberly wrapped her arms around Tommy's neck, pulling him down as she rose onto her tiptoes. Bringing her lips just centimeters away from his ear, she put on her best seductive voice and whispered, "The 'thank you' sex that we're having tonight is going to blow your mind."

Tommy could do little more than grin stupidly as Kimberly gave him a wink and then walked off to look at another case. Eventually, he was able to regain enough of his composure to return his attention to the rings that Kimberly had previously been looking at while she continued to browse for her engagement present.

Every ring in the case contained at least a full carat's worth of flawless diamonds, and none of them had a price tag. Tommy had bought enough jewelry over the years for his mom, Kimberly, and other old girlfriends to know that the lack of a price tag on a piece usually meant that it was because no price tag was big enough to hold the necessary amount of digits.

In other words, he was extremely thankful that his investments in Mercer Industries and Bio-Lab — the company owned by Alan Collins, father of Wes, the former Red Time Force Ranger — had netted him more money than he would ever be able to spend in his own lifetime.

While a couple of the rings caught his eye, one seemed to stand out more against the rest. The band itself was made of platinum, and at the center was a large cushion-cut diamond, surrounded by many smaller versions of itself that ran along the upper half of the band on either side. But what truly made him look twice was the color of the smaller diamonds, which alternated between pink and white, the latter of which were incredibly rare.

Had it not been for his discovery of a real white diamond while on a dig with Anton several years back, he probably would not have even been able to differentiate between it and the typical stone. But as Anton had shown him, there was a true milky-white inherent color, as well as a translucent milky-white apparent color. The lack of a secondary color was what truly made the diamonds so rare and valuable.

Knowing that Kimberly would love the ring, he made a mental note to bring her back to look at it another day, and then set a reminder on his phone for the end of the week, just in case he forgot. With that, he walked over to where she was standing on the opposite end of the store and found her looking at a collection of necklaces.

Approaching her from the side, he said, "Have you decided on anything yet?"

Kimberly sighed. "It's so hard," she answered with a laugh. "Ninety-five percent of the stuff here I want to buy."

Smiling, Tommy said, "Well why don't you pick one thing out for now, and then we can worry about buying out Tiffany's some other time?"

"Ugh," muttered Kimberly, rolling her eyes playfully, "Fine, I guess I'll settle for just one."

With that, she called out to the salesman who had greeted them earlier and motioned for him to come over. As he walked towards them, Tommy asked, "Which one are you thinking about?"

Kimberly merely smiled, though, not speaking again until the salesman had arrived. "I'd like to try this one on, please," she announced, pointing to a necklace inside the case.

For a brief moment, Tommy noticed a change of expression on the man's face, as though he thought that Kimberly must have been joking. Perhaps he thought that their attire dictated what they could and could not afford. After all, most people in the market for an eight-thousand dollar necklace probably did not come in wearing a black Van Halen tee shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and brown leather flip-flops, in Tommy's case; or, in Kimberly's case, white short-shorts, a pink tank-top, and five-dollar white flip-flops from Old Navy.

But then the man seemed to remember his job training, because he quickly gave a smile and reached into his pocket, extracting a ring of keys. "You have excellent taste," he said as he made to unlock the case.

Tommy closed his eyes to prevent himself from visibly rolling them. Silently, he mused that the salesman would have probably told Kimberly that a stale candy necklace was in excellent taste if he thought that it would fatten his commission check a bit more. Nevertheless, Tommy soon opened his eyes and found himself looking at the necklace in question, which Kimberly was holding out to him expectantly with one hand while using the other to pull her hair back. "Can you help me with this?" she asked

Blinking his mind back into focus, Tommy quickly nodded and took the necklace from Kimberly, looking at it as she slowly turned her back to him. He had to admit, the salesman was right; she did have excellent taste. The chain, like the band of the ring he was so fond of, was platinum, holding onto a gorgeous diamond-encrusted key that shimmered vibrantly beneath the ceiling lights.

Carefully fastening the chain around Kimberly's neck, Tommy stepped back and watched as she murmured her thanks and then moved to observe herself in a nearby mirror. "That piece has more than a carat worth of diamonds, you know," the salesman said conversationally.

Tommy silently wondered if the salesman was telling them that for mere informational purposes, or as a way to direct them towards something that he thought was more in their price range. Before he could think on it much further, however, Kimberly turned around and said, "Where do you get your diamonds from?"

"I'm sorry?" the salesman replied, clearly caught by surprise.

"The diamonds, where do they come from?" repeated Kimberly. "Are they conflict diamonds? And don't try to tell me they aren't if they are. I can sniff out a liar faster than Jack Bauer."

Looking even more taken aback now, the salesman needed a few moments to recover before he could answer. "The honest truth is that we have no idea whether these are conflict diamonds or not. We're a giant corporation and the diamond trade is full of middlemen who have no problem lying to us about the source of the stones. While we try our hardest to ensure that our diamonds come only from clean sources, there's simply no way for any jeweler, large or small, to determine with certainty if they're buying blood diamonds or not."

Though it sounded like a company line that the salesman had recited from memory, Tommy also thought that it was probably the first completely honest thing that he had said to them thus far outside of telling them his name. For her part, Kimberly observed the man's face in silence for a few moments only to nod once and then look away.

After observing her reflection in the mirror for several more seconds, she then looked back at Tommy and said, "I would feel like the most terrible person in the world if I found out that enslaved kids in some third-world African country died so that I could wear these diamonds."

Tommy smiled, not surprised by her statement at all. For as long as he could remember, Kimberly had always cared deeply about the welfare of others, even those that she had never once met before. "It's your decision, Beautiful," he told her. "At the end of the day, though, I think there are only so many things that you can do to try and save the world, you know?"

Kimberly, of course, immediately understood the deeper meaning to his words. Still, she did not want to take the risk — knowingly or otherwise — that the diamonds on her neck could also be blood on her hands. It was with a saddened expression, as though she was a child who had just put her dog to sleep, that she took one last look at herself in the mirror and then slowly unfastened the chain.

Turning around, she looked at Tommy and shook her head before handing the necklace back to the salesman. "I'm going to have to pass on this," she told the man during the exchange. She then returned her attention to Tommy and said, "I really appreciate you doing this for me, but I don't want to take the chance of contributing to the continued death of innocent people."

While Tommy himself was not nearly the bleeding heart that Kimberly was, he still nodded and said, "I can respect that. Tiffany's sells more than diamonds, though."

Kimberly seemed to consider that for a few moments and then smiled. Quickly, she took off towards the other side of the store without saying another word, leaving Tommy to shake his head before following after her.

"I want this," she told him once he had arrived at her side, pointing at an item that had caught her attention during her earlier trip around the store.

Tommy's eyes were soon following her finger to the locket she was pointing at, a smile overtaking him at once. The heart-shaped locket and chain were made of gold — eighteen carat, according to the approaching salesman — and seemed absolutely perfect for Kimberly. It was not overtly flashy, but it was still a beautiful piece, just like her.

"I have the perfect pictures of us to put inside of it, too," she added, beaming up at him brightly.

Still wearing his smile, Tommy looked down at her and nodded. "If that's what you want then it's yours."

"It is," she said, nodding as well. The kiss he received a moment later was all the thanks he needed, especially after she had just gone from an eight-thousand dollar diamond necklace to a one-thousand dollar locket.

As the salesman moved to unlock the case, he looked to Kimberly and said, "If you'd like to have any kind of personalized message engraved into the locket, we can do that and have it ready for pickup by this time tomorrow."

She definitely wanted the locket personalized but, knowing that it would cost extra, Kimberly made sure that it was okay with Tommy before confirming this to the salesman. Since she would not be taking the locket home with her today, the salesman carried it into a back room and then returned a minute or so later with a pencil and a scrap of paper in its place.

While Tommy dealt with paying for the locket, Kimberly took the paper and pencil and walked far enough away so that he would not be able to see what she was writing. She was not going to show it to him until the inscription was done and the pictures were inside, either.

Folding up the piece of paper, she walked back over to the register where Tommy was signing the receipt and handed her instructions to the salesman, who accepted them with a smiling nod. It was then, just as Tommy had dotted the "i" in his last name, that a familiar six-tone chime came from two different sources to fill the area around them.

Immediately, Tommy's right hand moved to cover his other wrist as Kimberly shoved her own hand into her pocket. Raising his eyes to find the salesman looking back and forth between them with a curious expression, Tommy turned to Kimberly and, acting as if the noise had come from a watch, said, "We need to get going or we're going to miss our appointment."

Kimberly nodded her agreement and, after quickly thanking the salesman for his help, they made a beeline out of the store, keeping their pace brisk as they passed by shops and shoppers alike in search of somewhere less crowded. Eventually, they came to a long hallway in between stores that was lined with benches and had a right turn at the end, which lead to a pair of restrooms.

Neither said anything as they walked by the benches, stopping in front of the restroom doors with their backs against the opposite wall. Standing on the inside, Kimberly peeked around the corner and then looked back at Tommy. "It's clear," she said.

Nodding, Tommy brought his communicator to his lips and said, "We're here."

"_We have a problem."_

It was Hayley.

Tommy rolled his eyes and muttered, "Fuck me." He then pressed the button on the side of his communicator once more and asked, "What's going on?"

"_Well, Scott was pretty pissed off about the fact that no one told he and his team that Adam, Aisha, and Billy are all married, but Jason got involved and was able to convince Scott that, having been Rangers and all, Tanya, Rocky, and Trini wouldn't say anything. Aside from that, there are five Goliath Rovers about to land in the middle of downtown Los Angeles that you might want to deal with."_

Again, Tommy rolled his eyes. "You could have just gone straight to that part," he said with obvious impatience in his voice.

"_I know,"_ Hayley replied nonchalantly. _"Stand by for an invisiportal."_

Less than five seconds later, a crackling swirl of black and green energy appeared a few feet above their heads. Next moment they were being sucked inside, the portal snapping shut just as the door to the men's room opened and an older man walked out. Had it not been for the fact that he was looking down upon his exit, he most certainly would have seen the portal just before it had disappeared.

Some one-hundred miles away, five separate invisiportals soon opened simultaneously above the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. Adam and Scott came from the first, then Jason, Dillon, and Summer; Tommy and Kimberly arrived next, followed by Aisha, Flynn, Ziggy, and Gemma. Billy and Gem were the last — though only by a few moments — to land atop the seventy-three story building.

Standing at the edge of the rooftop, surrounded by the twelve other Rangers, Tommy looked down to find five long, horizontal blurs of silver flying in a single-file line just feet above the cars on the streets below. Suddenly, the first blur changed direction, going into a vertical climb that required it to slow its speed significantly.

One by one, the remaining blurs followed suit until, at last, five Goliath Rovers were visible, the jet propulsion in the bottoms of their feet allowing the robots to hover roughly fifty yards above the ground. Then, without warning, the jets cut off and the Rovers began to plummet rapidly, landing feet first and violently smashing at least twenty-five cars — some of which had been occupied — in the process.

"Fuck this," said Tommy. Looking left and right briefly, he added, "Let's go."

And then he was gone, having leapt from the edge as though he were doing a pencil-jump from the world's tallest diving board. The fact that he had not even bothered to morph left several of the Rangers atop the building looking around at each other in surprise, but not Kimberly. Her attention was focused solely on Tommy, maintaining her gaze until she had seen the all-telling burst of white energy midway through his descent.

With that, she turned her back to the ground and looked around at the other Rangers. With a smirk, she gave a quick wink and muttered, "Catch you on the flipside." Then she was gone, having effortlessly launched herself into a graceful back flip off the edge of the building.

Not wanting to be left behind by his two best friends, Jason gave a brief wave to the other Rangers and was following after Tommy and Kimberly the next moment. Turning to his right, Adam said, "Guess we should probably join them."

Scott simply nodded his agreement as the remaining Rangers formed a shoulder-to-shoulder line at the tower's edge and then jumped. Echoing cries of "It's morphin' time!" and "RPM, get in gear!" surrounded them as they fell, nine separate expulsions of brightly colored energy temporarily blinding the people inside the tower, who had the severe misfortune of working on the wrong floor at the wrong time during the morph.

In a matter of seconds, though, the Rangers had all landed safely on the ground, with much bigger problems to worry about than a civilian's inability to see for fifteen or twenty seconds. Tommy and his teammates immediately called for their Zords, while Scott, holding what looked like an oversized flip-phone, brought the device to the side of his helmet where his ear would be and said, "We could use some firepower here, Doc."

"_Ranger Series Red, I'm down-morphing the High Octane, ValveMax, and Mach Megazord configurations as we speak,"_ a female voice replied.

In the distance, a shrill whistling sound could soon be heard, rapidly growing closer and closer as Scott and his teammates looked to the sky in an attempt to locate the noise. Then there came a burst of vibrant white light and, from it, nine different individual Zords.

Watching as he waited for the Thunder Zords to arrive, Tommy was honestly not sure what to think of the RPM fleet. Their Zords, which were each a hybrid of an animal and a type of vehicle, were almost cartoonish in nature, with comically large eyes and mouths that made them seem far from threatening. Had he been piloting the green shark/motorcycle, or the gold chicken/helicopter, or the blue lion/bus, he doubted if he would have even been able to take himself seriously.

Yet the RPM Rangers leapt into their Zords and quickly formed three separate Megazords, each equally impressive in their own right. Scott's eagle/flying race car, Summer's bear/monster truck, and Flynn's lion came together to create the High Octane Megazord, while Dillon's wolf/police car and Ziggy's shark combined with an orange crocodile/eighteen-wheeler to form the ValveMax Megazord. Finally, Gem's helicopter and Gemma's tiger/fighter-jet linked up with a massive blue whale/jumbo jet to establish the completed Mach Megazord.

With three new Megazords on their side, Tommy mused that the odds were as close to even in a fight against the Goliath Rovers as they were likely to ever be. For the first time since the ARC had unveiled the giant robots over a year ago, in an attack against New York City that the Rangers had just barely been able to stop, Tommy did not feel like their only goal was to merely survive until the next fight. Instead, they were fighting to win; to abolish the ARC from Earth once and for all.

Deciding that now was the time to show the ARC that they, the Rangers, were not backing down any time soon, Tommy looked to his teammates as their Zords arrived and announced, "It's about time we switched things up." That having been said, he leapt into the cockpit of his running Tigerzord and, inserting Saba into its proper slot, called out, "Mega Tigerzord transformation, now!"

Without any action of their own, the remaining Rangers suddenly found themselves being pulled towards their Zords and, once inside, the Thunder fleet began their own transformation. "Thank God," said Jason via the Zord's internal communication system, as the Red Dragon Thunderzord began its conversion to Warrior Mode. "I was really starting to get sick of being stuck in that cockpit with the rest of you."

"Love you too, Jase," said Kimberly with a laugh.

"Okay, guys," interjected Tommy, rolling his eyes while grinning despite himself, "Let's try to focus on this one for now, alright?"

As he soon realized, however, there was not much they could really do. By the time that they had assembled the Mega Tigerzord, one of the Goliath Rovers had already been destroyed, while another had had both arms and a leg removed and was trying unsuccessfully to remain standing. The other three Rovers were all being engaged by the RPM Megazords, none of which looked like they needed much help.

"Screw it," said Tommy, turning the Megazord to face the wobbling Goliath. "We brought this thing together, we might as well have some fun with it; Kim, power up the Firebird."

Kimberly laughed. "My pleasure," she replied, pressing a series of buttons on the control panel in front of her.

The last button she pushed caused the mouth of the Tigerzord, as well as the Firebird attached to its right forearm, to glow a vibrant shade of red. Moments later the Firebird was released as if it had been shot out of a cannon, eventually becoming no more than a blur of red energy that ripped the Goliath's head off on impact.

No one inside the Thunder Megazord bothered to celebrate; rather, they turned their focus to the RPM Rangers as, one by one, the Goliath Rovers quickly fell to the ground in heaps. The last one, which had been doing battle with the High Octane Megazord, ended up split in half at the waist via the Megazord's Super Saber.

Of course, there was a fair share of destruction done to the surrounding area. Every parked car for two full blocks became scrap metal, and several buildings ended up on the receiving end of damage that ranged from mild and aesthetic, to structurally irreparable. However, the fact that the damage had been contained to such a small radius was, without a doubt, a major victory in and of itself, one that Tommy and his teammates were eager to celebrate with their new allies.

"I've never felt more useless as a Ranger than I do right now," said Kimberly, shaking her head as she and her teammates shared a laugh inside the Mega Tigerzord's cockpit.

"Girl, I just wish it could always be this easy," added Aisha.

Beneath his helmet, Tommy smirked. "C'mon guys," he said, shaking his head as well, "Let's get out of here."

A few minutes later the Zords had been sent back and the two teams were standing atop the U.S. Bank Tower once more. They had only just begun to congratulate each other on their victory when a cluster of individual portals opened above their heads, sucking the Rangers through and returning them to their pre-battle locations.

Luckily for Tommy and Kimberly, there was no one outside the mall bathrooms when they reappeared there several seconds later. With a look to his right at Kimberly, Tommy grinned and muttered, "We need Zords like that."

Kimberly merely giggled and nodded her agreement as she grasped hands with Tommy, the pair continuing on their way through the mall.

Though Tommy had lured Kimberly to the mall with false intentions, promising lunch when he had really just wanted to take her to Tiffany's, his stomach now gave a rumble as they passed the food court from across the mall, the combined smell of several different types of fast food reaching his nose as they walked.

"Hungry much?" said Kimberly with a laugh, having clearly heard his growling stomach.

Tommy barely gave a nod as he pulled Kimberly with him towards the food court. Ten minutes later, they were seated at a small table with a cheesesteak sandwich and drink for each and a basket of French fries between them to share.

Dipping one of the fries in the puddle of ketchup next to them, Kimberly winced as she watched Tommy take a bite of his sandwich. While hers was a plain sandwich, Tommy had asked for his to be made with extra bell peppers and onions.

"Eww," she groaned, smiling despite herself. "You better not even _think_ about trying to kiss me after that thing."

Tommy swallowed the food in his mouth and then smirked as he took a sip of his soda and replied, "Aw, come on, Beautiful; you know you love my onion breath."

Kimberly rolled her eyes playfully. "Loving you and loving your onion breath are _not_ mutually exclusive, Tommy."

Tommy just smiled as they went on with eating their lunch, stopping frequently to continue the playful banter that had become so commonplace in their relationship. Truthfully, that level of banter was something that both of them loved; it allowed them to express themselves to each other in a non-serious way, thus avoiding many of the arguments that had seemed to plague their previous relationships.

When they had finally made it back to Tommy's house nearly an hour later, they were still going at it, so much so that Dillon and Summer, who were watching television in the living room with Hayley and Jason, thought that the older couple was genuinely fighting. As they exchanged a nervous look with each other, Jason laughed and quickly explained that this was quite normal behavior for Tommy and Kimberly and definitely nothing to worry about.

As they entered the living room, Tommy looked around and was surprised to see that there were only four people in the house. "Where's everyone else?" he questioned, looking at Hayley.

"Where they were before the fight," she answered nonchalantly. "They all had stuff to do as well, remember?"

"Did you really just ask Tommy if he remembered something?" Jason interjected, shaking his head. "Come on, Hayley, I thought you knew him better than that."

Rolling his eyes as the others shared a laugh at his expense, Tommy simply said, "I'm going swimming."

With that, Tommy turned and started for his bedroom, leaving Kimberly behind for just a moment as she looked around at the others and said, "I think I'm gonna go too. Anyone else want to join?"

Summer sighed. "I'd love to, but I didn't bring a suit; didn't think we'd be doing much swimming while we were here, you know?"

"Same here," said Dillon.

"That's fine," said Kimberly, shrugging. "I'm sure Tommy has a pair of trunks that will fit you, Dillon, and I've got more than enough bikinis for you to choose from, Summer."

That seemed to settle the debate for Dillon and Summer. Neither had been swimming for quite some time; their high-rise apartment building lacked a pool, and their busy lives probably would not have permitted them to use it even if the building had had one.

Hayley, however, had to get back to the café that she owned in town, and Jason was intrigued very little at the prospect of being the proverbial fifth wheel to the two couples. Instead, he opted to go to the gym and left the house just as his four roommates made their way through the sliding glass door into the backyard.

To say that Tommy's backyard was impressive would be a vast understatement. The door led to a small covered patio with a table and several chairs, and to the left of it was a porch swing big enough to accommodate four people. Beyond the patio was a large stretch of neatly manicured grass some sixty yards long and twenty yards wide, perfect for the spontaneous games of touch football that seemed to break out every time Tommy held a Ranger gathering at his house.

Just passed the grass was the pool, and on the other side of that was another concrete patio, although this one much larger than the one outside the door. Several long pool chairs sat at the closest edge of the patio; behind them and to the right was a four-foot high brick wall that curved around the patio corner, hiding the gas grill and wet bar that were perhaps the two most important factors in those same Ranger gatherings.

Then there was the foliage that surrounded the entire area. Various types of shrubbery, flowers, and trees filled his backyard. Tommy, however, did not know what any of them were. Knowing that he would likely mistake poison oak for a rose bush, Hayley had taken it upon herself to pick everything out when he had first moved into the house.

Of course, for Dillon and Summer, it was hard to focus on anything other than the pool itself, so much so that they did not even notice the half basketball court on the backside of the larger patio.

Though the owner of the company who'd built the pool had been extremely confused by the design choice, Tommy's friends had all been quite amused by the pool, which was shaped like the dragon symbol that had been emblazoned upon his very first Power Coin.

They were only ten or so feet from the pool, Dillon on the verge of asking Tommy about the design of the pool, when Tommy suddenly dropped his towel and took off running. Unable to hear the shrieks of Kimberly and Summer from beneath the water, when he finally emerged several seconds later Tommy could tell from their smug, dripping appearances that his cannonball had done the trick.

But where was Dillon?

Tommy looked to his right just as another head of dark brown hair suddenly broke the water's plane, Dillon laughing heartily as he turned to face Summer. Apparently he had followed Tommy's performance with a cannonball of his own.

For their part, the two women slowly shared angered expressions with one another. Standing at the edge of the pool, Kimberly let her towel slip from her hand as she muttered to Summer, "Let's get 'em."

Summer merely nodded, throwing her towel down as she and Kimberly dove straight at their respective significant others, tackling them and dragging them underwater in the process.

The element of surprise left Tommy momentarily stunned, but he was quick to recover and immediately took hold of Kimberly as they struggled beneath the water. They wrestled desperately for the advantage in position, neither willing to give an inch until the need for oxygen simply became too much to bear any longer.

Even as they came up for air, though, the pair continued their battle, moving about the pool wildly until at last there was nowhere else to go. Kimberly had found herself pressed against the wall of the pool with a hand on either side of her, Tommy seemingly boxing her in as he hovered over her with dripping hair.

They were both breathing heavily, and though Tommy was wracking his brain for some clever wisecrack, the only thing that he could think about was Kimberly…Kimberly and how sexy she looked…dripping wet…right there in front of him…

Before he knew it, his hands were at her back and he was kissing her passionately, Kimberly's arms and legs encircling his neck and torso as she returned the kiss. It took every ounce of self-control Tommy could muster to not let things go any further, knowing that Dillon and Summer were in the pool with them as well.

However, when they finally broke their kiss and Tommy looked around, he saw that the younger couple was in the middle of enjoying their own very similar activities. Smirking, he looked back around at Kimberly and then slowly shook his head.

"What is it?" she asked softly.

"Nothing," said Tommy, looking fleetingly at Dillon and Summer once more. Then he saw the look in Kimberly's eyes and knew she would not let him off the hook so easily. Sighing, he went on in a murmur, "It's just — this is gonna sound weird, but…I get the feeling that there's something more to Dillon. We were talking earlier, back in San Francisco, and it was like there was this crazy connection between us."

Kimberly narrowed her eyes. "A connection?" she said laughingly. "Tommy, you're not gonna start batting on the other side of the plate, are you?"

Laughing heartily, Tommy shook his head again and said, "Get outta here, Kim. You know what I mean. It's like what you told me about you and Kat. You felt something there when you two first met. You couldn't explain it, but you knew that there was something big between you. That's how I feel now…like something big is going to happen between me and Dillon."

Kimberly seemed to think on that for a few moments, nodding slowly every so often before finally giving up with a shrug of her shoulders. "I dunno, Tommy; I mean, maybe you're right. Who knows? The Power works in mysterious ways; we've known that since the beginning. If you are right, though, you know it's one of those things that you're not going to be able to force. If something is meant to happen, it will happen when it's meant to; no sooner, no later."

Tommy said nothing for several long moments; then, finally, a smile and a nod.

"Yeah," he said, somewhat grunting as he pushed himself over Kimberly and out of the pool, "you're probably right."

"I know I am," she said, grinning as she watched him walk over to his towel, scoop it up, and start to pat himself dry. "Where are you going?"

"To take a leak," he answered, rubbing the towel all over his head. "Why? Do you wanna join me or something?"

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Ha ha, very funny," she replied, sticking her tongue out at him. She gave a brief look to Dillon and Summer, saw the pair engaged in a heated makeout session, and then quickly directed her attention back to Tommy. "Hurry up, will you?" she said almost pleadingly. Clearly, she wanted to be doing the kissing, not watching it.

Smirking once more, Tommy gave a quick wink and then started towards the back door. Less than five minutes later, and having properly relieved himself, Tommy exited his bedroom and was passing through the hallway en route to the backyard once more when something made him freeze on the spot.

It was a faint noise…a tune of some kind…coming from one of the nearby guest bedrooms.

With rapidly narrowing eyes, Tommy listened carefully to the tune, barely making a sound himself as he crept down the hallway. He knew the tune well, having heard it frequently while spending summer days as a youth at his grandparent's house in Arizona.

As he tiptoed beyond Jason's room, he became aware that the sound was emanating from the room he had given to Dillon and Summer, the door to which was open several inches. Growing even more curious now, Tommy quietly slipped into the room and immediately began his search for the source of the tune.

As it was, it did not take him very long to find it at all. Resting atop the oaken dresser was a small, silver pocket watch that had been left open, thus allowing the sound to escape. Picking up the watch, a surprised expression crossed Tommy's face as he inspected the object, an expression that soon turned to anger once he had closed the watch and examined its outer shell.

His first instinct was to walk outside and demand to know how and why Dillon or Summer had taken the watch from his room; the same watch that had been given to him by his grandfather — his mother's father — just before he had passed away some ten years prior.

But then he noticed several small scratches on both sides of the watch's shell, scratches that did not exist on the watch that had been left to him. Furrowing his brow, Tommy maintained his hold on the watch and rushed back into his bedroom, setting it atop his own dresser before beginning a hasty search through the topmost drawer that left a collection of boxer shorts, socks, and undershirts lying on the floor behind him.

Finally, his hands emerged from the drawer, a small blue box in his left hand that he quickly removed the top from.

There it was, just as it had been the last time that he had looked at the watch some six months ago. But while the other watch was in nowhere near the same quality of condition as his, there was still no denying the striking similarities between the two timepieces. They were exactly the same size; they opened and closed in the same way, held wind-stems in the same position, and even had the exact same clock faces — a white surface with black hands, Roman numerals, and hash marks.

Reasonably speaking, Tommy knew it was a definite possibility that there was no connection between the two watches whatsoever. But then he remembered the conversation he had just had with Kimberly, which in turn reminded him that the Power was about as far from reasonable as was possible.

Instantly, a whirlwind of thoughts began to flood his mind, leaving him grasping the edge of the dresser with both hands as he hung his head and tried desperately to make some sense of everything. Of course, there was a very easy way to find out if he even had any reason to be suspicious at all.

Opening both watches, he picked up his own and slowly inserted his fingernail into a small crevice that ran along the bottom half of the silver shell. Carefully, he lifted up with his finger and pried open the bottom shell, thus splitting the watch into three still-conjoined pieces.

The seemingly hidden compartment of the watch was nothing special to speak of, really. Rather, it contained a brief inscription that had been written to his mother's grandfather when he had first received the watch from his father as a birthday gift over a hundred years ago. Tommy could not read the inscription, being that it was scribed in Polish, but what was written inside the watch was not of any real importance.

Without hesitation, he opened the other watch just as he had done with his own, nearly dropping it in shock when he saw that it contained the exact same inscription as his own.

Setting both watches back on the dresser, Tommy backpedaled until he found his bed, at which point he slowly lowered himself into a seat on the foot of the mattress. Confused beyond recognition, he rested his chin atop his hands and forced his mind clear as he began to think about everything that had happened since first meeting Dillon.

The physical similarities he had first noticed — but had also quickly banished as mere coincidence — immediately returned to the forefront of his thoughts.

Alas, after several minutes of quiet contemplation, there was only one conclusion that Tommy could reach.

He needed help.

Not even bothering to pick up the clothes he had discarded minutes prior, he returned his watch to its box and then the drawer, closing it behind him before racing out of his room with the other watch in hand. After making sure everything in Dillon and Summer's room — watch included — was exactly as it had been before his entrance, he quickly made his way into the basement, booting up one of the computers as he reached over to a nearby office-style phone and pressed three keys.

Though Tommy had placed the phone into speaker-mode, there was no dial tone or ringing sound to speak of as he waited for the person on the other end to answer. Instead, it was a series of random clicking noises, until finally a male voice answered, sounding quite friendly as he said, "Hey, Tommy, what's up?"

"Not much, Wes. How are things over there?"

"Same old, same old," said Wesley Collins, the former Red Time Force Ranger. "Jen, Eric, and I talk every day about giving up our powers, man, especially now. We really want to be there to help you guys."

"I know you do, man," said Tommy, almost solemnly. Deep down, he really wanted Jen, Eric, and Wes there too. Besides his own team, they were three of the most capable Rangers he had ever served with. "Listen," he went on, shaking his head clear, "that's part of the reason why I'm calling. I need Jen's help with something. Is she around?"

"Uh, yeah, she's in the bedroom I think," said Wes, sounding more than a bit curious, "Let me go see what she's doing. Hold on a sec."

"Sure," said Tommy simply.

Nearly a minute later, a brightly sounding female voice reached his ears. "Tommy, it's so good to hear from you! It's been forever since….well,_ you know._"

Tommy chuckled despite himself.

Thirteen months before the war started, Tommy and Jason had been approached for a clandestine mission by the three Time Force Rangers, as well as a handful of other Rangers from various teams, specially selected for the mission. So secret was the mission that Kimberly herself did not even know about it.

And though the mission was successful in the end, it had also cost Eric his Quantum powers, and Jen — who had only been allowed by Time Force to stay in the present day on the condition that she did not use her powers again — had nearly died, making retirement an easy decision for the trio, even if they did regret it now.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Tommy laughingly. "Maybe once all this stuff is over with, we can all get together again."

"Definitely!" said Jen enthusiastically. From there, several quiet moments passed before she finally broke the silence by asking, "So, what's up? Wes said you needed my help with something…"

Tommy sighed heavily. "I do," he murmured. "I need you to get in touch with Time Force. I need to talk to Alex."


End file.
